Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Traveller overnight stays reached record numbers in Belgium in 2023, indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impact on tourism in the country appears to have been eliminated almost completely.
What factors contributed to Belgium’s record-breaking overnight stays in 2023?
The overnight stays in Belgium last year approached 44.7 million. This scores a 3.9% increase compared to the earlier year, and an even more meaningful rise (5.1%) when compared to pre-Covid formations of 2019. This is a new record for the nation, figures issued
by Belgium’s statistics agency Statbel and its European counterpart, Eurostat.
This upgrade was also recorded in the European Union overall, which also reached 2019 levels for the first time. Nearly three billion overnight stays were reserved in the bloc’s countries, a 6.8% growth compared to 2022 – a more substantial climb than Belgium recorded. However, compared to 2019, Belgium registered a more substantial rise than the European average of 2.3%.
Which countries showed the fastest tourism recovery post-COVID?
When it comes to the growth since 2019, Belgium is among the best-performing nations. It was followed by Luxembourg – which was an outlier with 22.2% more overnight stays – as well as the Netherlands (+15.3%), Denmark (+13.5%) and Portugal (+9.4%). Neighbouring France witnessed a modest 3.1% grade in overnight stays compared to 2019, while Germany still witnessed its tourism level drop (-1.3%). Latvia and Slovakia’s overnight tourism is healing at the slowest speed.
How do Belgium’s tourism figures compare to neighboring countries?
More than 18.5 million tourists journeyed Belgium, of whom more than half were Belgians visiting another region of the country. They also accounted for over half of overnight stays (23.1 million, or 52%). This places Belgium in line with the European average (53.5%).
People living in its bordering countries are more likely to take a journey within the country’s borders – in the Netherlands, domestic tourism accounted for 58.5% of overnight stays, while in France and Germany, this was as elevated as 69.9% and 81.4%, respectively. Luxembourg, however, is very undesirable as a holiday destination for its residents(13.6%).
On this flank of the spectrum, the country is bound by the states with the most foreign tourists, including Malta (93.1%), Croatia (91.3%) and Greece (83.6%).
Aside from being a favoured destination for people from within the country’s boundaries, Belgium remained most famous in the Netherlands (Dutch people accounted for around 6.1 million overnight stays, mostly in Limburg by the Dutch border). The nation was also popular among Germans (3.2 million overnight stays) and the French (2.7 million overnight stays). Many Brits and Americans also toured to Belgium.
