Latest data posted by European Travel Commission shows that despite negative forecasts European tourism sector confirms growth during these summer months thanks to raising demand from both long-haul and intra-regional markets.
According to the report “European Tourism 2015 Trends & Prospects”, the majority of European destinations enjoyed growth during spring beginning of summer. Hotels in Iceland were the best performers the growth of international tourist arrivals there estimated 30%. They are followed by hotels in Montenegro (+19%) and Romania hotels (+16%), which also posted substantial growth. Among other best performing European destinations were Ireland and Croatia (both +14%); Slovenia, Cyprus and Serbia (all +10%). These destinations posted double-digit growth. Such famous destinations as Germany (+5%), Italy (+4%) and Spain (+4%) enjoyed lower growth of international tourist arrivals, and hotels in the UK managed to improve their figures by 3%. These results make European hoteliers very optimistic about the peak travel season results.
Early summer results were significantly boosted by travel-hungry citizens from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and France. Travellers from the UK are more interested in Europe now because of favorable exchange rates.
Long-haul markets also remain an important source of tourists for European hotels. This is particularly true about North American and Asian markets. On the other hand, the difficulties of Russian economy made tourists from this country visit Europe less, which certainly affected traditional hot-spot destinations.