In 2024, German tourists made up 35.9 percent of all overnight stays in Austria, according to data released by the Statistical Federal Office (Destatis), which utilized results from the European statistics agency Eurostat.
Among neighboring alpine countries, Croatia came second, accounting for 22.5 percent of all nights spent by German guests. Interestingly, both Austria and Croatia recorded a significantly higher proportion of overnight stays from German visitors than from domestic travelers (28.3 percent for Austria and 9.3 percent for Croatia).
Across the EU, German travelers accounted for 11.6 percent of all visitor nights in 2024. In roughly half of the EU nations, they represented the largest group of foreign visitors. The Netherlands ranked third among EU states with the highest German tourism share, registering 19.2 percent of total overnight stays. Major tourist destinations like Italy, France, and the Czech Republic also showed a strong presence of German tourists.
Conversely, Germany accounted for the lowest percentage of overnight stays in Romania (1.6 percent). The following countries with smaller percentages were Slovakia (2.5 percent) and Finland (3.1 percent). Germany contributed a relatively smaller share of overnight stays overall in Sweden (4.3 percent) and France (4.7 percent), and in Spain, their share was 10.9 percent, which was slightly less than the EU average of 11.6 percent.
Outside the EU, Eurostat provides data for selected countries. In Turkey, German travelers accounted for 14.9 percent of total overnight stays in 2024. Similarly, in Switzerland (9.9 percent) and Norway (6.3 percent), German guests constituted the largest share of foreign visitors.
Based on the total number of overnight stays, Italy recorded the highest absolute number of German tourists in 2024, with 65.3 million stays. Other high-ranking destinations included Spain (54.9 million), Austria (47.1 million), the Netherlands (27.9 million), and France (21.3 million).
