Beyond 'sun and sand': Spain is the EU country where hotel overnight stays increase the most from January to March.

Despite Easter this year falling in April rather than March, as it did last year, Spain managed to become the European Union country with the largest increase in hotel overnight stays by tourists in the first quarter, reaching 79.1 million nights, 3.5 million more than in the first quarter of 2024, according to the latest data published by Eurostat.

This means that just over 879,000 travelers stayed in the country's tourist establishments every day, almost 40,000 more than in the same period last year. Of these, 67.2% were foreigners.

The country is thus making progress on one of its main objectives for transforming its tourism model : deseasonalization . The flood of tourists that Spain receives in the summer makes travel to many areas of the country unsustainable, especially those with "sun and beach" options, where prices have skyrocketed, there is insufficient hotel supply, a lack of labor to fill tourism-related jobs, and housing for workers is unsustainably expensive.

The sheer number of people, combined with the impact of climate change in some areas where heat has gone from being a draw to a disincentive, means that the main objective of one of our main economic drivers is to increase its traction in other months of the year , and it seems, for now, to be taking steps toward that goal.

Compared to the increase in Spain, the total number of nights spent in tourist accommodation in the EU fell by 0.2% compared to the same period last year. "The drop in the first quarter of 2025 is likely due to a calendar effect, as Easter, which fell in the first quarter in 2024, fell in the second quarter this year," explains Eurostat. This, in our case, has been more than offset by the influx of travelers from abroad.

The main drivers of the decline at the European level were domestic tourists , in each country, since the arrival of foreigners did increase on the continent: "International tourism grew by 2.2 million nights (+1.1%), while in the same period, domestic tourism decreased by 3.3 million nights (-1.3%)," they point out.

The decline in local tourism in Spain was more pronounced than the EU average (-2.1%), but arrivals of travelers from other countries grew much more (8.3%, eight times more than the EU average), according to data from the EU's statistical agency. In fact, one in four foreign tourists who stayed overnight in tourist accommodation in the EU in the first three months of the year did so in Spain, demonstrating the country's increased attractiveness to foreigners, even during the winter months.

Poland was the second country, after Spain, to experience the largest increase in the number of overnight stays in absolute terms (with 19,000 more tourists per day); while the largest decreases were in Germany (with 3.5 million fewer, equivalent to the gain in Spain), Austria (-1.4 million), and Ireland (-1.2 million). In relative terms, Malta (+17.5%), Latvia (+10.8%), Lithuania (+9.9%), and Poland (+9.6%) experienced the largest increases.

In terms of accommodation type, the largest increase in Spain was in establishments other than hotels ( tourist apartments , for example), with a year-on-year increase of 9.4%, while hotel nights rose by 3.7% and camping and caravanning nights grew by 0.2%.