Domestic and international guests made some 68.3 million bookings for holiday accommodations in Germany through online platforms last year, according to the country’s federal statistics office, Destatis.
The figures, based on data from Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia, indicate that online bookings for holiday accommodations rose by 13% in 2025, and are well up on pre-pandemic figures, with an 83.4% increase recorded since 2019.
As Destatis noted, the figures supplement official tourism statistics by capturing accommodation providers with fewer than 10 beds, which are largely excluded from Germany’s monthly tourism survey. ‘These are often private landlords who offer accommodations as a secondary source of income,’ it added.
Around 94% of the 68.3 million overnight stays booked via the platforms were at properties with fewer than 10 beds, equating to 64.1 million overnight stays not included in the official accommodation statistics.
Overnight stays
Domestic travellers continued to drive growth. Overnight stays by German residents rose 15.3% year on year to 48.5 million, while bookings by international visitors increased 7.8% to 19.8 million. Compared with 2019, domestic bookings more than doubled, increasing by 106.3%, while international bookings were 44.2% higher.
In terms of international visitors, The Netherlands led the way, accounting for 2.9 million overnight stays. Poland ranked second with 2.1 million, followed by the United States with 1.3 million. France and Switzerland completed the top five international source markets.
Regional performance
On a regional basis, Bavaria recorded the highest number of online-booked overnight stays, with 10.6 million, representing 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 8.0 million.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had the highest share of domestic guests, with 92.3% of overnight stays booked by German residents, ahead of Schleswig-Holstein (88.7%) and Thuringia (83.8%).
In contrast, Berlin was the most international destination, with 67.7% of overnight stays booked by overseas visitors, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia (42.3%) and Baden-Württemberg (40.8%).
Destatis added that year-on-year comparisons should be interpreted with care, as the use of online booking platforms may reflect changing booking behaviour as well as changes in tourism demand. As it noted, ‘Until the reporting year 2024, data from the TripAdvisor platform was also available. TripAdvisor terminated the agreement at the end of 2024. Since only aggregated data from the participating platforms is available, rather than platform-specific data, the impact of TripAdvisor ‘s withdrawal cannot be quantified.’ Read more here.
