Cyprus ranked third among European Union countries for tourist intensity in 2025. The island recorded an average of 19.4 overnight stays in tourist accommodation per resident, according to data published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Only Croatia and Malta recorded higher figures. Croatia had 24.5 overnight stays per resident, while Malta recorded 21.7. Cyprus was followed by Greece with 15.1 overnight stays per resident and Austria with 14.6. Across the European Union, the average stood at 7 overnight stays per resident in 2025, up from 6.7 a year earlier. Cyprus’s figure was therefore almost 2.8 times higher than the EU average. At the other end of the ranking was Romania, with just 1.6 overnight stays per resident. Latvia recorded 2.7, while Poland and Slovakia each had 2.9.
Tourist overnight stays in the EU exceeded 3.1 billion
According to Eurostat, tourist accommodation establishments across the EU recorded around 3.1 billion overnight stays in 2025. This was 4.1% more than in 2024, when the figure stood at 3 billion. Compared with 2015, when 2.5 billion overnight stays were recorded across the European Union, the total increased by 26.5%.
Domestic tourism and trips by residents of other EU countries accounted for 80.9% of all overnight stays, or around 2.5 billion. Tourists from other European countries outside the EU accounted for another 10.4%. The remaining overnight stays were generated by travelers from other regions of the world:
- North, Central, and South America — 4.9%, or 155.5 million overnight stays;
- Asia — 2.6%, or 81.6 million overnight stays;
- Oceania — 0.5%, or 15.2 million overnight stays;
- Africa — 0.4%, or 12.9 million overnight stays.
Tourists from Asia and Africa posted the fastest growth
In 2025, compared with the previous year, the number of overnight stays by tourists from Asia increased by 15.4%, while stays by visitors from Africa rose by 13.7%. These were the highest growth rates among the regions listed. The longer-term trend was even more significant: since 2015, the number of overnight stays by travelers from North, Central, and South America in EU countries has more than doubled, increasing by 101.9%. In 2015, the figure stood at nearly 77 million.
For Cyprus, the high tourist-intensity figure highlights the importance of tourism to the country. However, the figure of 19.4 overnight stays per resident reflects the ratio between the total number of tourist overnight stays and the population. It does not represent the average length of stay of an individual tourist. Nor does it mean that every resident hosts tourists or directly earns income from the industry.