Holiday apartments and holiday homes booked through major online accommodation platforms showed strong growth in Germany during 2025, with overnight stays increasing by 13% compared with the previous year, according to data from Destatis, the country’s national statistics office.
Domestic and international travellers in Germany booked a total of 68.3 million overnight stays through Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia during 2025, the data showed. Bookings through these three platforms reached their highest level on record.
Rise in popularity
Compared with 2019, i.e. prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, platform bookings increased by 83.4%, although Destatis noted that the growing popularity of online booking platforms may account for part of the increase rather than changes in travel demand alone.
Domestic tourism continued to drive growth in the holiday homes/apartments market. Overnight stays by German residents rose by 15.3% year on year to 48.5 million, while bookings by international visitors increased by 7.8% to 19.8 million.
Compared with 2019, domestic overnight stays through the platforms were more than double pre-pandemic levels, rising by 106.3%, while international bookings were 44.2% higher.
International and regional travellers
In terms of international travellers, visitors from the Netherlands accounted for the largest number of overnight stays, accounting for 2.9 million bookings. Poland ranked second with 2.1 million overnight stays, followed by the United States with 1.3 million.
France and Switzerland completed the top five international source markets.
On a regional basis, meanwhile, Bavaria recorded the highest number of platform-booked overnight stays, attracting 10.6 million bookings, or 15.5% of the national total. Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia each recorded 8.1 million overnight stays, while Lower Saxony followed closely with 8 million.
The composition of visitors varied considerably across Germany’s federal states. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania recorded the highest share of domestic guests, with more than 92% of overnight stays booked by German residents.
By contrast, Berlin had the highest proportion of international visitors, who accounted for two thirds (67.7%) of all overnight stays booked through the platforms. Read more here.
