CityDNA Reveals that Urban Tourism in Europe Booms with Double-Digit Growth in 2023

The 20th edition of the City Travel Report by CityDNA (formerly known as the CityDNA Benchmarking Report) reveals a steady growth in European city tourism, as cities achieved an average increase of 13.7% in 2023.

The report, featuring results from 117 European cities, showcases the remarkable progress made in the post-pandemic recovery. In line with sustainability strategies, the report includes estimations of transport-related CO2 emissions related to city tourism.

“This report is the perfect illustration of a fruitful collaboration between European destinations; it highlights significant trends, notable challenges, qualitative KPIs and key market dynamics that are shaping the landscape of city travel compared to national tourism,“ commented Barbara Jamison-Woods, President of City Destinations Alliance.

This development is due to growth in total bed nights experienced in 114 out of 117 analysed cities. The top three cities in terms of total bednights in 2023 remained the same as 2022: London, Paris, and Istanbul.

Among the top 20 performers, the most notable increases were recorded in Rome (45.2%), London (32.1%), and Vienna (30.6%). Compared to 2019, Istanbul had the highest growth: the city exceeded its 2019 values by 24.3%.

The main source markets for European cities have shown robust performance in 2023. However, the growth rates were diverse: single-digit growth for France; double-digit growth for United Kingdom, United States, Italy, Spain, and Germany; and an impressive triple-digit growth for China and Japan.

The past year has shown positive average international annual growth rates in both the report cities (19.6%) and the EU 27 nations and UK (13.8%). Cities increased much more than other regions (15.5% versus 7.2%) in terms of total volumes, which highlights yet again the importance of city destinations within European tourism.

Further analyses revealed that the average growth rate of bed capacity gained momentum with an increase of 4.6% in 2023. Regarding the bed occupancy, the benchmark average in 2023 was 46.8%, in comparison to 43.1% in 2022.

In line with the varied sustainability strategies that are on the agendas of many DMOs, the City Travel Report by CityDNA continues with estimations of transport-related CO2 emissions related to city tourism. Upon inspection of CO2 emissions caused by tourists travelling to/from the city, average nominal value for total CO2 in 2023 was at 776,678, which unsurprisingly, was heavily skewed by large cities such as Amsterdam, Lisbon, Vienna, and Prague. Regarding kg CO2 per tourist 2022-2023, average percentage growth was 11.8%, with only 3 out of 61 analysed cities recording negative rates, namely Stockholm, Liepaja, and Luxembourg.

These results offer a brief preview of the further post-pandemic recovery and stabilisation of the European city tourism in 2023, despite ongoing challenges (e.g., conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, inflation, and the impact of climate change). More insights and analyses that are found in the City Travel Report by CityDNA can be of great assistance to city DMOs in setting realistic targets for their destinations.

“City tourism is the clear growth driver of tourism demand in Europe and the most important segment in tourism. In 2023, demand was on track to fully return compared to the period before.” concluded Karl Wöber, President of Modul University Vienna.

Read the executive summary