The international tourism segment was the hardest hit by the mobility restrictions during 2020 and 2021. In the EU, both the number of people and overnight stays by foreigners at tourist establishments collapsed by 70% compared to 2019, and pre-pandemic levels were only recovered in 2023 as demand finished normalising in key markets such as China (see second chart). However, its revival has not been without obstacles, such as the war in Ukraine, the higher cost of air travel and hospitality services and, more recently, the impact on flights of tensions in the Middle East and the increase in global uncertainty. By comparison, domestic demand declined by 30%-40% and had already recovered pre-pandemic levels by 2022, although since then it has experienced moderate growth in a context in which the cumulative loss of European households’ purchasing power has only recently begun to be corrected.
The revival of international tourism in the Mediterranean region has had a significant macroeconomic impact in recent years and has been a key factor in the recovery of GDP to pre-pandemic levels, contributing to job creation and the improvement of the current account balance. For these countries as a whole, their traditional external surplus for tourism services stood above 2% of GDP in 2023 and 2024, exceeding the 2019 level (see fourth chart). In contrast, the other group of countries that showed a positive balance prior to the pandemic – of which the largest in volume terms were Austria, Hungary and Poland – registered net tourism exports last year equivalent to 0.8% of GDP, half that of 2019.