Tourism in Belgium in 2016: cautious increase after difficult spring and summer

Enterprises
Fremdenverkehr in Belgien 2016: vorsichtige Zunahme nach schwierigem Frühjahr und Sommer

36,855,214 overnight stays have been booked in 2016 in Belgium. This represents a 4 % decrease compared to 2015. Especially the period from April (-15 %) to August (-5 %) registered a number of overnight stays far below the 2015 figures. From November on, the sector gets back to its 2015 level, with slight increases of 2 % in November and 5 % in December.
The Brussels-Capital Region registers the sharpest decrease, with 19 % fewer overnight stays compared to 2015. The Flemish Region experienced an annual fall of 2 %, with a decrease of 15 % in April. The Walloon Region did not experience any fallback in April while in May, the number of overnight stays decreased by 5 %. Considering the year as a whole, Wallonia even registers an increase of 2 %.
Half of the overnight stays in Belgium were booked in a hotel (47 %), followed by holiday homes (17 %), holiday parks (15 %) and youth hostels (10 %). These numbers are practically the same as those of 2015.
54 % of overnight stays in Belgium were booked by Belgians in 2016. The remaining 46 % of overnight stays were booked by travellers from the Netherlands (13 %), France (7 %), Germany (6 %), the United Kingdom (5 %), the United States (2 %), Spain (2 %) and Italy (1 %).