# Europe Forum > Travelling & Living in Europe >  Eurostat on Tourism in Europe (2009)

## julia90

*Top 20 tourist regions in the EU-27 (2009)*

Out of the 20 top tourist regions in the EU-27 in 2009 (in 
terms of nights spent at hotels and campsites), 17 regions 
were from Spain, Italy and France.

With 63.6 million overnight stays, the Île-de-France region, 
which includes the French capital Paris, was well in the lead, 
followed by three Spanish regions: Cataluña (54.1 million), 
Illes Balears (45.9 million) and Canarias (45.3 million). 
The region of Veneto in Italy took fifth place (44.8 million). 
Almost one in seven tourism nights spent in hotels or 
campsites across the EU was spent in one of these top five 
regions.
Inner London (seventh place), Tirol in Austria (11th place) 
and Oberbayern in Germany (18th place), which includes 
the Bavarian metropolitan area of München, were the only 
regions in the top 20 that were not in one of the three leading 
tourism countries.
In 18 of the 20 regions, more nights were spent in hotels and 
similar establishments than on campsites. In two French 
regions, Languedoc-Roussillon and Aquitaine, however, 
the opposite was true, as they attracted more tourists to 
campsites than to other types of accommodation.


Tourism in Europe is concentrated in the coastal regions. 
The Alpine regions also saw strong demand.

In the regions of western Europe (mainly coastal regions) 
and Scandinavian countries, campsites are more frequently 
used as accommodation than in central and eastern Europe.

_
Overnight stays in campsites_

The regions with campsites accounting for more than 40% 
were concentrated in nine countries: the United Kingdom, 
Netherlands, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, 
Portugal and Croatia. No regions in Bulgaria, Estonia, 
Lithuania, Latvia or Romania had over 5 % share of nights 
spent on campsites. A large majority of regions in Poland 
and Austria had a less than 5 % share of overnight stays 
spent in campsites.


_Share of inbound tourism_

The share of inbound tourism, i.e. visits from abroad, 
differed very widely from region to region from around 
2 % to over 97 %. Foreign overnight visitors accounted for 
more than 90 % of overnight stays in five EU regions in 
2009: Malta, Luxembourg, the Czech region of Praha, the 
Greek region of Kriti and the Austrian region of Tirol. This 
was also true in Liechtenstein and the Croatian region of 
Jadranska Hrvatska

Southern Europe’s 
island regions recorded particularly high figures of foreign 
visitors as a percentage of total overnight stays, especially 
Malta, Cyprus, the Greek island regions, the Spanish Illes 
Balears and Canarias and the Portuguese Região Autónoma 
da Madeira. All of these regions recorded a share of nonresident nights above 80%.

Inbound tourism also occupied a key position in the capital 
regions of some countries. This was true in Luxembourg, 
the Czech region of Praha, Bruxelles-Capitale/Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest in Belgium, Inner London in United 
Kingdom, the region of Közép-Magyarország in Hungary 
and Wien in Austria. All of these regions recorded a share of 
non-resident nights above 80%.

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## Brett142

In terms of international tourists Paris' number falls to 15.2 million (I guess the French must love visiting their own capital city, figures) with London only 500,000 behind with 14.7 million. Still Paris and London have for a long time and probably will dominate the city tourist industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism...s_and_rankings

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