PARIS, June 28 — Almost three quarters (73 per cent) of trips made by EU residents were made within their own country of residence, according to a report published yesterday, June 27 by Eurostat, a Directorate-General of the European Commission responsible for providing statistical information. Motor vehicles, mainly cars, proved the most common means of transport (64 per cent).
While travel has become a real passion for some thanks to the increasing variety of offers and services in the aviation and accommodation sectors, a report from the European Commission reveals that the majority of Europeans don’t necessarily head beyond their own borders when making trips. Based on figures from 2017, EU residents made 1.3 billion trips with overnight stays, and in almost three-quarters of cases, those trips were made within their own country of residence. Romanians scored the highest share of domestic trips (94 per cent), followed by the Spanish (91 per cent), the Portuguese (89 per cent), the Greeks (88 per cent), the French (87 per cent) and the Bulgarians (86 per cent). The largest proportion of trips abroad was seen in smaller countries like Luxemburg (98 per cent) and Malta (68 per cent), not to mention Belgium (80 per cent) and Slovenia (62 per cent).
In fact, just 27 per cent of trips were made abroad, of which 21 per cent were to other EU countries and 6 per cent were to destinations outside of the EU.
The average trip length was 5.1 nights, whether domestic or abroad. Almost half of all trips (49 per cent) were for leisure or vacation purposes, while 35 per cent were visits to family or friends. Only 12 per cent were business trips.
Cars are the most common means of transport
Rented accommodation was the top choice for overnight stays during trips made by EU residents in 2017 (55 per cent). Hotels and similarly serviced accommodation options account for 32 per cent, while 6 per cent of stays were spent at campsites and the remaining 17 per cent in other rented accommodation, such as holiday homes, apartments, youth hostels and mountain huts.
Neither train nor air travel managed to outstrip the car as the main means of transport for trips made by EU residents (64 per cent), with the highest share of trips by car found in Slovenia (85 per cent), Portugal (80 per cent), Czech Republic (79 per cent), Spain (77 per cent) and Bulgaria (77 per cent).
Airplanes proved the next most common means of transport (17 per cent), with trains used for just 11 per cent of trips. The French were the most avid train users for tourism trips (15 per cent) followed by the Germans (14 per cent). Less common means of transport were buses (6 per cent) and water vessels (2 per cent). — AFP-Relaxnews
