Number of short-stay accommodations booked online rose 18% in Q3 2024

The number of short-term accommodation rentals in the European Union that were booked through online platforms such as Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group or Tripadvisor rose by 18% in the third quarter of 2024, new data from Eurostat has revealed.

According to the data, guests spent some 366.2 million nights in short-term rental accommodation that was booked online, including hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses and other accommodation formats, during the period.

July 2024 saw a 16.4% increase in online bookings, to 135 million nights, while August was up 21.6%, to 152.2 million nights. September saw a 14% increase in bookings, to 79 million nights.

Malta leads the way

As for the EU countries that saw the biggest increase in short-term rentals through online platforms, data from August 2024 (the busiest month of the three) indicates that Malta saw a 41.4% increase compared to the same month the previous year.

Elsewhere, bookings in Germany were up 32.7%, with France up 29.9%.

The smallest increases in bookings made through online platforms were recorded in Croatia (+9.7%), Bulgaria (+12.2%) and Slovenia (+13.6%), Eurostat’s data showed.

The information was sourced from monthly data on short-stay accommodation offered via online platforms for the third quarter of 2024 at the national level, published by Eurostat.

Elsewhere, previous data from Eurostat showed that Malta recorded the highest percentage of overnight stays from foreign visitors (91%) in the EU in the first quarter of 2024, ahead of Cyprus (87%) and Luxembourg (82%). Across the bloc, foreign visitors accounted for 45% of all overnight stays in the first three months of last year. Read more here.