According to data released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Tuesday, tourists from both Germany and abroad booked a total of 68.3 million nights in holiday apartments and houses across Germany in 2025, utilizing the three major online platforms: Airbnb, Booking, and Expedia.
While the data from the online platform Tripadvisor was no longer included in this year’s comparison, the remaining three platforms still recorded 13.0 percent more such nights than in 2024. Furthermore, the level seen before the pandemic in 2019 had been significantly surpassed by 2025. Back in 2019, international and domestic guests had booked 37.2 million nights in holiday accommodation via these platforms (including Tripadvisor); in contrast, the 2025 figures were 83.4 percent higher. The report does caution that this trend of increased bookings via online platforms may skew year-on-year comparisons and cannot be solely attributed to changing travel habits.
Approximately 94 percent of the nights booked through the three online platforms were in apartments or houses offered by accommodation providers with fewer than ten beds. In many cases, these are private landlords offering the accommodation as a secondary income. This contrasts sharply with the official monthly tourism survey, which only tracks stays in establishments with at least ten beds. The official tourism statistics show 97.0 million nights in holiday apartments and houses in 2025. This means that 94 percent-or 64.1 million-of the stays recorded on online platforms are not captured by the official tourism statistics.
Regarding the breakdown by origin, domestic guests increased their bookings by 15.3 percent compared to 2024, reaching 48.5 million nights. The growth in international stays was less pronounced, rising by 7.8 percent year-over-year to 19.8 million. International tourism in holiday accommodation in Germany also soared past the pre-pandemic peak, with 2025 bookings being 44.2 percent higher than in 2019. Moreover, domestic tourist stays were 106.3 percent higher than before the pandemic.
In 2025, the majority of stays by international guests-2.9 million-were in Germany from the Netherlands, a number matched in the previous year. Poland followed with 2.1 million nights, while the USA ranked third with 1.3 million. The top five countries of origin for 2025 were completed by France (1.3 million nights) and Switzerland (1.1 million nights), just as in the prior year.
Geographically, the most popular destination through these online platforms in 2025 was Bavaria, with 10.6 million nights booked, accounting for 15.5 percent of all bookings. Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Lower Saxony followed with each booking 8.1 and 8.0 million nights, respectively.
Differences in guest nationality were noticeable across the various states. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern saw 92.3 percent of its accommodation booked by domestic guests, followed by Schleswig-Holstein with 88.7 percent, and Thuringia with 83.8 percent. Conversely, in Berlin, 67.7 percent of all nights were booked by international guests. Following this trend, North Rhine-Westphalia saw 42.3 percent of its bookings from abroad, while Baden-Württemberg recorded 40.8 percent.
