Eurostat releases data on tourist accommodations offered through Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor

For the first time, Eurostat has produced data on occupancy in guest houses, apartments, suites, holiday homes and rest-houses¹, which are offered through the four largest international booking platforms - Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor.

In 2019, in Latvia guests spent 1.5 million nights booked on one of the four digital platforms; that is an increase of 29.6 % compared to 2018. However, the number of nights booked in neighbouring countries Estonia (1.62 million guest nights) and Lithuania (1.66 million guest nights) was slightly higher in 2019.

 In Latvia the share of international guest nights was 87.5 %, while 12.5 % were domestic guest nights. On average one booking or stay² represented 7.5 guest nights; 8.3 guest nights for international guests and 4.6 guest nights for domestic guests. The average number of guest nights per booking shall not be confused with duration of stay.

Most of the accommodations have a capacity of up to 10 beds (93.3 % of booked guest nights).

In 2019, 65.3 % of all guest nights were spent in Riga, followed by Pierīga - 16.4 %, Kurzeme - 12.6 %, Vidzeme - 2.7 %, Latgale - 2 % and Zemgale - 0.9 %.

In 2019, the busiest months were July (20.4 %) and August (19.9 %), and these two summer months cover 40,3% of the annual number of guest nights while the share of February was the lowest - only 3 %.

In Latvia, the most international guest nights were booked by guests from Russia (269 thousand), Lithuania (145 thousand), Germany (139 thousand), the United Kingdom (99 thousand), Estonia (79 thousand), Finland (55 thousand), France (43 thousand) and the United States of America (43 thousand).

The project was launched by Eurostat in 2018 with the aim of providing statistics on the growing segment of tourist accommodations offered via online booking platforms; it was initiated by the Member States, including Latvia. Data on guest nights booked in the European Union and European Free Trade Association countries at regional and city level in 2018-2019 and more information on the project is available on the Eurostat website in the section “Statistics explained”.

Accommodations offered in Latvia via Booking platform

The Central Statistical Bureau, in the framework of the Eurostat grant project “New data sources and methods in tourism statistics”, performed ethical web scraping of publicly available information on the capacity and occupancy of tourist accommodation other than hotels and campsites³ from the global accommodation platform Booking. The number of beds was determined using the information provided on the maximum number of people that can be accommodated in the offered premises.

In 2020, compared to 2019, the accommodations offered in Latvia through the Booking platform increased in January, February and March, i.e. before March 12 - the declaration of an emergency situation in the country due to the Covid- 19 pandemic, followed by a decrease in accommodation offer in April, May and June. However, in July and August there was an increase again, which corresponds to the seasonality of tourism sector.

¹ Holiday and other short-stay accommodation in category I 55.2, according to NACE Rev. 2 classification (includes guest apartments, suites, holiday homes, rest-houses, lodges, cottages, etc., does not include category I 55.1 Hotels and similar accommodation and I 55.3 Camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks).

² Average number of guest nights per one booking: the number of nights booked per stay, taking into account the number of guests (for example, four family members booking 1 room for 3 nights make up 12 guest nights.

³ Data from the accommodation booking platform for the relevant period at the time of data collection in March 2020 and March 2021. Accommodation included in the research project - guest apartments/suites, holiday homes, country houses and other similar accommodation (category I 55.2, according to NACE Rev.2 classification).

Media requests:
Communication Section
E-mail: media@csp.gov.lv
Phone.: +371 27880666

More information on data:
Dita Zemīte
Transport and Tourism Statistics Section
E-mail: Dita.Zemite@csp.gov.lv
Phone: +371 67366690