EFCO&HPA: in 2021 Italy ranks first for number of nights spent in campsites (but France is missing)

For almost two years now, we have been “fighting” against the Corona pandemic that has changed and, certainly not for the better, the lives, habits and choices of each of us. And that includes everything, including holidays and travel. How did the last three seasons in European campsites go, touristically speaking? If we talk about the number of overnight stays in 2021, Italy is at the top of the ranking (defined by Eurostat and BVCD data updated to August) of the countries of the European area, if we exclude France which, as will be seen later, has no data relating to 2020 and 2021 (in this regard, however, there are the FNHPA data that we published a few days ago, which speaks of 129 million overnight stays).

The extensive list was published by EFCO&HPA (European Federation of Campingsite Organizations and Holiday Park Associations) and includes 37 countries in the European area. From the list of the body that represents the camping, holiday and caravan park sectors at European level, and of which FAITA FederCamping is also part, the data regarding Ireland and Malta is totally missing. Also absent are those, for 2020 and 2021, concerning Cyprus, Montenegro and, especially France, while the United Kingdom is absent from this year’s data, given the exit from the European Union.

Taking into consideration 30 European countries – excluding France, Great Britain and Ireland, in 2021 there were a total of over 171,5 million overnight stays in campsites, just over 140 million last year and about 207,3 million in 2019. As can be deduced from the numbers, we are still far from the pre-pandemic results, but this year the situation has definitely improved compared to 2020 (+22.45%), but even if compared with two years ago (-17.25%), given that last year there was a decrease, compared to 2019, of 32.42 per cent.

As already mentioned at the beginning, Italy leads the 2021 ranking of overnight stays in campsites (over 31 million), followed by Spain (just over 26 million), Germany and the Netherlands with, respectively, over 24,55 million and 21,33 milllion nights. Croatia, which wins the 5th position, recorded about 14,2 million overnight stays. A good result for Italy, taking into account, however, that France is missing, a country that in 2019 was worth almost 118 million and was abundantly first in the ranking, followed at a distance by Italy with about 46,6 million overnight stays and by the United Kingdom with just under 45,3 million nights.