Overnight stays recorded at German hotels reach 223.3 million in the initial half of 2025
===================================================================================================
Despite a slight decrease in foreign guest stays, German hospitality businesses registered a record number of overnight stays in the first half of 2025. The total number of overnight stays exceeded 223 million, marking an all-time high for the period.
The decrease in foreign guests' overnight stays can be largely attributed to the absence of the UEFA European Football Championship in Germany this year. In 2024, the event attracted many international visitors, boosting the number of overnight stays significantly. However, when excluding the UEFA EURO effect, international overnight stays actually increased by about 4% compared to the first half of 2023, indicating a recovery trend in foreign tourism.
Domestic tourists accounted for the bulk of the overnight stays, driving the sector’s record-breaking performance. Germans alone recorded 42.8 million overnight stays, a significant increase from the previous year. One reason for this surge could be that the Whitsun holidays in some federal states fell mainly in June in 2025, whereas they were in May the previous year.
The average hotel occupancy rates in the first half of 2025 were stable compared to the previous year, with fluctuations in June tied to the UEFA EURO effect. Hotel occupancy rates averaged around 65%.
In June 2025, domestic guests' overnight stays increased significantly, rising by 7.4 percent to 42.8 million. The total number of overnight stays in June 2025 was 50.5 million, a slight increase from the previous year's figure of 49.7 million.
Overnight stays by international visitors dropped by 3.2% year-on-year to about 36.4 million. However, this decrease is largely attributed to the baseline anomaly caused by the UEFA EURO 2024 event in June 2024, which generated record tourism numbers that are not repeated in 2025.
In summary, robust domestic tourism was the primary driver behind the record overnight stay numbers in Germany’s hospitality sector in H1 2025, successfully offsetting the international visitor dip caused mainly by the absence of the extraordinary tourism boost linked to the UEFA EURO 2024 event.
The travel industry experienced a slight decrease in foreign visits due to the absence of the UEFA European Football Championship in 2025, but domestic tourism, particularly during the Whitsun holidays, boosted the number of overnight stays, enabling the finance sector to record a remarkable growth in the first half of 2025. This upward trend in lifestyle choices, favoring travel and tourism, contributed to the all-time high in overnight stays for the hospitality industry in Germany.
