Filenews 12 January 2025 - by Theano Thiopoulou
Competition between hotels and short-term rentals is growing, as thousands of foreign visitors and Cypriots choose airbnb and other organizations for their holidays, which reflects an aspect of the modern situation for the challenges faced by the hotel industry.
The latest Eurostat data reveal the trends in accommodation bookings prevailing in Europe concerning furnished villas, furnished houses and apartments. Online platforms recorded 366 million nights spent in short-stay accommodation in the third quarter of 2024, which is the most important quarter for tourism in the EU and highlights the ever-increasing growth rates, with an increase of 18% in the third quarter of 2024, compared to the third quarter of 2023.
This is the fourth consecutive year with double-digit annual growth for the third quarter compared to the previous year (2021: +33.3%, 2022: +34.8%, 2023: +13.8%). This increase adds to the already significant growth rates recorded in previous years, and third-quarter visitor nights already exceeded the baseline price before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2022.
Cyprus in the trend of the time
But the question is what is happening in Cyprus. It is a fact that the country experienced a good year in 2024 as a tourist destination and, apart from foreign visitors, thousands of locals preferred holidays within the island.
In the third quarter of 2024 (July, August, September) overnight bookings increased by 16,9%, compared to the same quarter of 2023 and it is estimated that tourists booked 2,524,713 nights in Cyprus through Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group or Trip Advisor, compared to 1,521,376 in the second quarter of 2024 and 760,403 in the first quarter of 2024, i.e. a total of 4,806,492.
The data shows that in the last quarter of 2023 the overnight stays booked by tourists were 1,191,084, showing an increase of 31.5% compared to the same quarter of 2022.
According to Cyprus law, the entrepreneur/manager of each self-catering accommodation may advertise and/or rent the accommodation only if it is registered in the Register of Self-Catering Accommodation and has obtained a registration license and registration number.
This number must appear in the advertisement and/or promotion of the property, as well as in all relevant transactions. At the same time, the property should have appropriate insurance coverage and comply with the appropriate specifications. Anyone who does not have a registration permit or whose registration permit has been revoked is guilty of an offence and, if convicted, is liable to imprisonment for up to one year or a fine of up to €5,000 or suffers both.
What is happening in Europe?
In Greece, bookings of overnight stays in short-term rental accommodation were 26,126,826 in the third quarter of 2024, recording an increase of 14,3%, in Spain it was 67,298,333, in Italy 55,727,328, in France 81,598,615, in Croatia 26,076,069. There were shorter nights spent in short-term rental accommodation in Austria 7,396,684, Belgium 4,123,070, Bulgaria 2,162,232, Czech Republic 3,552,042, Denmark 3,459,106, Ireland 3,230,744, Malta 2,428,764, Slovenia 2,208,085, Slovakia 1,406,904, Lithuania 1,117,930, Finland 1,680,261, Estonia 749,055, Latvia 809,280.
Which countries had a big rise?
For the third quarter of 2024, the highest growth rates of short-term rental accommodation in the EU were observed in Malta (+40.9%), followed by Germany (+26.0%) and Sweden (+24.6%). France, Spain and Italy, the most popular destination countries in the third quarter of 2024, recorded growth rates of 23.8%, 20.2% and 15.5% respectively.
In the previous quarter (Q2 2024), growth rates among EU countries ranged from 4.9% in Belgium to 40.6% in Malta, with growth of 16.2% at EU level. Before that, in the first quarter of 2024, average EU growth was 28.3%, with country values between 16.5% in Austria and 49.6% in Malta.
Looking at the 8 most popular EU destination countries in the third quarter of 2024, it becomes clear that platform tourism in all 8 countries benefited from the overall growth of the industry. The number of overnight stays in all 8 countries has increased compared to 2023 and all are well above their pre-pandemic levels.
The most popular regions for short-term rental accommodation through online platforms in the second quarter of 2024 were Andalusia in Spain (10.9 million nights), followed by Jadranska Hrvatska in Croatia (8.3 million nights) and the French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte. d'Azur (7.5 million nights). In the top 20 regions, 6 were each in Spain and France, 5 in Italy, 2 in Portugal and 1 region in Croatia.
The platforms pledged to provide evidence
Data on nights spent in short-term rentals are provided to Eurostat by 4 international platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Tripadvisor), following data exchange agreements.
The data refers only to accommodation offered through the four organisations and cannot – due to possible overlaps – add other tourism statistics for room rentals or other types of accommodation.
In March 2020, the European Commission reached a landmark agreement with Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor on data sharing to publish key statistics on short-term rentals of accommodation concluded through these platforms on its website.
In particular, the platforms agreed to share, on an ongoing basis, data on the number of nights booked and the number of guests. The privacy of citizens, including visitors and owners, is protected under applicable EU law and the data does not allow individual citizens or property owners to be identified.
The data provided by the platforms is then subject to statistical validation and is aggregated and published by Eurostat. According to Eurostat, the agreement allowed, for the first time, access to reliable data on holidays and other short-stay accommodation. It helps to fill an information gap, as data on holiday homes, apartments and rooms in other private buildings are often outside the scope of existing tourist registers.
