Portugal vs Spain vs Greece vs Italy vs Croatia: Ahead of 2019, Behind on Momentum

Why Italy drops out of the 2025 comparison

A benchmark is only as good as its scope. Eurostat’s tour_occ_ninat counts nights in hotels, holiday and short-stay accommodation and campsites, for residents and non-residents, but each country fills it differently. Portugal reports establishments with ten or more bed places, so the small alojamento local units that dominate its rental stock are partly outside the series. Spain applies no size threshold. Croatia counts the private rooms and apartments registered in its eVisitor system, which is why it reports 121,113 establishments averaging 9.6 beds. Greece grossed its figures up to full coverage from 2018, which makes a 2015 base unusable but leaves 2019 to 2025 clean.

Three yardsticks carry the comparison, and each misses something. Nights in registered accommodation are the most harmonised, but they leave out day-trippers, friends-and-family stays and unregistered rentals. Balance-of-payments receipts capture all non-resident spending except international fares, but they cannot be split by region or season. Airport passengers are timely, yet they count residents and transit traffic and say nothing about where people sleep. Where two yardsticks agree, we treat the finding as solid. Where they diverge, as nights and receipts do for Croatia, we say so.

Italy’s change is larger. From 2025 Eurostat’s note says the Italian data cover private rental accommodation run on a non-entrepreneurial basis, following the national CIN registration code that applied from 1 January 2025. Bed places jump from 5.50M to 7.69M, establishments from 265,319 to 738,751 and nights from 466.2M to 535.5M. ISTAT’s flash estimate, which stays on the old scope, shows nights up 2.3% for the year. Apply that rate to Eurostat’s 2024 figure and the result is 476.9M, which matches the 477M the tourism minister quoted in July (Fortune Italia, 15 July 2026). We also tested a figure of 750 million Italian nights and found no source for it.

The break contaminates the EU total as well. Eurostat’s October vintage shows EU27 nights up 4.1% in 2025, but Italy’s change adds about 69M nights. Removing the whole of it leaves +1.8%, which is a floor, and the March 2026 release as reported gave +2.2%. We therefore show Italy two ways: as Eurostat prints it, flagged, and on a like-for-like estimate built from 2024 and ISTAT’s growth rate, labelled derived.

A note on reliability. The Eurostat series were read through an API fetch layer that summarises each response, one country at a time, so we cross-checked them three ways: receipts and consumer-price indices against central banks and national statistics offices, monthly nights summed against annual totals, and Portugal’s totals against INE’s. The Portuguese figures match to the unit (89,427,522 nights in 2025), and Spain’s monthly sum agrees with its annual figure within three nights. The one single-year query that returned an empty value, for Spain, was rerun as a range.

Nights: Portugal led the recovery, then the field caught up

Eurostat counts 89.4M nights in Portuguese tourist accommodation in 2025, up from 77.6M in 2019. That is 2.39% a year. Spain grew 1.47% a year to 512.9M, Greece 1.43% to 156.3M and Croatia 0.65% to 94.8M. Our annual report for 2025 shows the same shape on INE’s wider count, where all accommodation types reach 89.7M nights.

Guests grew faster than nights. Portuguese arrivals rose 18.6% to 33.1M, against 13.3% in Spain, 11.7% in Greece and 5.8% in Croatia, and the average stay fell from 2.78 to 2.70 nights. Spain’s fell from 3.48 to 3.35 and Greece’s from 4.20 to 4.09. Every market is selling shorter stays, but Portugal began with the shortest of the five, so its shift shows most in the arrivals count.

The foreign half of the story is where the two clocks part. Foreign nights in Portugal were 15.6% above 2019 in 2024, marginally ahead of Italy’s 15.1% on the old scope and well ahead of Spain (7.7%), Greece (6.8%) and Croatia (1.0%). Then Portuguese growth stopped. Foreign nights rose 14.8% in 2023, 4.8% in 2024 and 0.6% in 2025. Spain went +11.2%, +6.7%, +2.1%, and Greece +10.4%, +4.1%, +2.2%. Croatia was already near flat at +2.4%, +0.8% and +0.8%. Portugal’s early surge is what the 2019 clock rewards, and it ran out sooner than the others. On a like-for-like estimate, Italy’s foreign nights are now about 20.0% above 2019, ahead of Portugal’s 16.3%.

Residents filled part of the gap. Portuguese domestic nights rose 3.5% in 2025 and are 13.1% above 2019, while Croatia’s domestic nights are up 30.2% on a small base of 9.2M. Foreign guests supply 67.1% of Portuguese nights, below Greece (83.8%) and Croatia (90.3%) and above Spain (64.1%). A stall in foreign demand therefore reaches Portugal’s totals less than it would reach the Adriatic or the Aegean.

The 2026 data repeat the pattern. In January to August, foreign nights are up 0.35% in Portugal, 1.35% in Spain, 2.03% in Greece, 5.19% in Italy and 0.13% in Croatia, all on the latest Eurostat vintage. Italy’s figure is valid because both years sit on the new scope. Portuguese domestic nights grew 2.16%, which lifted all-night growth to 0.95%. Croatia’s flat eight months hides a first half at −0.56% and a July about 0.9% higher (derived). Our monthly tracker follows the INE releases that feed these totals, with the next one due on 30 October.

National offices confirm the direction. Spain’s INE counted 366.7M hotel nights in 2025, up 1.0%, with residents down 0.2% and non-residents up 1.6%, and the roughly 146M nights in apartments, rural lodging and campsites bring Eurostat’s total to 512.9M. ELSTAT counted 38.2M arrivals (+2.8%) and 156.3M nights (+2.2%) in Greece, identical to Eurostat. Croatia’s statistics office counted 94.8M commercial nights (+1.2%), within 35,000 of Eurostat. Italy is the only country where the national and European figures part, and the break explains why. These are the same pictures from three angles: Spain’s hotel growth is mostly foreign, Greece’s is balanced and Croatia’s is flat.

Capacity explains part of the difference in intensity. Portugal added 9.3% more bed places and 15.3% more nights, so nights per bed place rose from 115.5 to 121.8. Spain moved from 129.1 to 131.7. Greece’s bed places fell 6.3%, but establishments fell 22.8% in the same period, a register clean-up, so its rise from 106.5 to 123.7 says more about the register than about hotels. Croatia reports capacity at its annual peak, which gives 81.8 and makes the ratio unfit for ranking. Italy’s bed places, up 48.5% in Eurostat, are the break again.

Money: the biggest gain in euros, matched by Spain once prices are removed

Portugal’s balance-of-payments travel receipts reached €29.1bn in 2025, 58.8% above 2019. That is the largest gain of the five. Spain’s rose 47.7% to €105.1bn, Croatia’s 45.2% to €15.3bn, Greece’s 30.0% to €23.6bn and Italy’s 28.0% to €56.7bn. All five match Eurostat’s 2 October vintage to the unit and agree with their central banks within revisions: Banco de Portugal’s first release was €29,131M, the Bank of Greece’s €23,626M and the Croatian National Bank’s about €15.3bn. Our receipts article follows the Portuguese series back to 1996.

Two checks qualify the table. Eurostat shows Spanish payments of €33.1bn, while the Banco de España’s published surplus implies about €34.9bn, a gap of €1.7bn we could not resolve, so Spain’s net balance carries more uncertainty than its receipts. Italy’s 4.6% nominal rise (3.1% in real terms, per the Bank of Italy’s June survey) had about two-thirds of its increase attributed to Jubilee-year visitors, which a normal year will not repeat. Croatia’s receipts rose only 1.7% in the first nine months of 2025, and the third quarter was 0.2% lower than a year earlier.

Growth in 2025 ranks the other way round. Greece added 9.4%, Spain 6.9%, Portugal 5.0%, Italy 4.6% and Croatia 1.9%. Portugal’s lead is a 2019 to 2024 story, and the rate has halved each year since 2023.

Prices decide how much of that is real. We deflated each country’s receipts by its own consumer price index for restaurants and hotels (HICP, COICOP 11). It is a rough yardstick, because tourists buy a different basket from residents. On that basis Portugal’s receipts are up 15.7% in real terms since 2019 and Spain’s 16.1%. Greece’s are up 2.0%, Italy’s 2.4%, and Croatia’s are down 11.7%. Using all-items inflation, Portugal (+32.0%) and Spain (+21.6%) still lead and Croatia (+8.5%) draws level with Greece. Croatia’s accommodation prices rose 73.6% over the period, against 44.1% in Portugal, 39.8% in Spain and 35.4% across the EU. Croatia raised prices fastest and sold 4.0% more nights.

Receipts per foreign night show where the money comes from. Dividing receipts by registered foreign nights gives €485 in Portugal in 2025, up from €355 in 2019, against €320 in Spain, €180 in Greece and €179 in Croatia. The ratio overstates spending where visitors sleep in unregistered lodging or stay for a day. That affects Croatia and Spain more than Portugal, and same-day visitors enter every country’s numerator, so the trend is a safer guide than the level. The trend is +36.5% in Portugal, +34.3% in Spain, +19.0% in Greece and +42.6% in Croatia, which is catching up from the lowest base. Italy’s €188 is on the new scope. On the 2024 base grown by ISTAT’s rate it is about €214.

Spain’s own survey counts show the same split between visitors and value. INE’s Frontur counted 96.8M international tourists in 2025 (+3.2%) who spent €134.7bn (+6.8%), against 83.7M and €92.3bn in 2019. Tourist numbers are up 15.7% and spending 46.0%, so Spain, like Portugal, has grown spending nearly three times faster than visitors.

How much tourism weighs on an economy depends on the yardstick, and the yardsticks disagree more than the countries do.

Croatia leads on every measure we could compare: receipts equal 16.3% of GDP and the net travel balance 13.5%. Greece’s receipts are 9.5% of GDP and Portugal’s 9.4%, while Portugal’s net surplus is 7.1% of GDP against Greece’s 8.2%. Spain’s 6.2% and Italy’s 2.5% describe much larger economies. Croatia’s share fell from 18.8% in 2019 even as receipts rose €4.8bn, because nominal GDP grew 67.9%. A falling share can mean a diversifying economy or a fast-inflating one.

Airports, seasons and prices

Airports tell the same two-clock story. Eurostat’s passengers-carried series shows Greece up 30.2% since 2019, Croatia 26.7%, Portugal 22.1%, Italy 20.3% and Spain 19.2%. That measure is not the one in our airports article, which uses INE’s and ANA’s airport totals of 73.75M and 72.5M rather than the 67.2M passengers carried, so compare growth rates across the two and not levels. In 2026 to date, operators report Portugal +2.4% (January to September), Spain +4.1% (January to September), Croatia +2.6% (January to July), Italy +4.9% (January to June) and Greece +5.3% at Fraport’s regional airports and +4.4% at Athens (January to August). The periods differ, but Portugal is the slowest, which fits a Lisbon airport with no spare slots.

Eurostat’s country totals sit below operator totals everywhere, by 8% to 16%: Spain’s passengers carried are 272.1M against Aena’s 321.6M for 2025, and Italy’s 193.3M against Enac’s 229.7M. We infer the cause is the way domestic passengers are counted, though Eurostat does not say so in a footnote we could find. The ranking by growth is the same on either source for Spain (+19.2% on Eurostat, +16.9% on Aena) and Portugal (+22.1% and +22.6%).

Seasonality splits the five into two groups. Portugal and Spain are year-round markets, with 36.3% and 38.2% of nights in July to September and a busiest month about 3.2 times the quietest. Italy sits at 45.2% and 4.8 times on the new scope. Greece is at 56.5% and 20.7 times, and Croatia at 67.0% and 41.1 times. Portugal’s July to September share fell from 38.3% in 2019, Spain’s from 39.5% and Croatia’s from 69.8%, while Greece’s edged up from 56.3%. Only Greece has become more seasonal.

Market concentration is lowest in Portugal. The top three source markets take 38.5% of foreign nights, against 39.5% in Italy, 40.9% in Greece (2024), 42.7% in Croatia and 50.3% in Spain, where the UK alone supplies a quarter. Our diversification index traces how Portugal got there: the United States and Canada supplied 43% of the growth in foreign nights since 2019.

Hotel prices have risen at similar rates. INE records Portugal’s average daily rate at €124.5 in 2025 across all tourist accommodation, up 39.6% from €89.2 in 2019, while INE’s Spanish hotel survey puts Spain at €127.7. The scopes differ, and Spain’s 2019 rate of €91.0 is in our notes but could not be reverified. Greek hotel rates of €111 come from a commercial vendor and have no 2019 comparison. We found no official rate series for Italy or Croatia. On quality rankings, the WEF’s 2026 Travel and Tourism Development Index, as reported, places Spain third, Italy tenth, Portugal eleventh and Greece 21st, with Croatia 46th on a single press source. Portugal was 12th in 2024, and its 2035 strategy reportedly aims for the top ten.

Policy: who is leaning on the brake

Policy responses show where officials think growth has gone far enough. Spain has moved furthest on prices. Catalonia’s tourist tax rose by 50% from 1 April 2026 and doubles from April 2027, taking a five-star room from €3 to €4.50 and then €6, with Barcelona’s municipal surcharge due to reach €8 by 2029. Barcelona has also said no tourist-flat licences will run beyond November 2028, about 10,000 apartments. Greece charges cruise passengers landing at Santorini and Mykonos up to €20 a head in peak months, and adds a resilience fee on short-term rentals of €8 in summer and €2 in winter. We could not confirm the 2026 cruise schedule. Venice charged a day-visitor fee on 60 days between 3 April and 26 July 2026, €5 if booked four days ahead and €10 otherwise. Croatia’s strategy targets 26% of nights outside June to September, and its 2025 implementation report shows 17.84% against a 16% baseline.

Portugal’s response is lighter. Municipal tourist taxes reach €4 a night and raised €174M in 2025, and Estratégia Turismo 2035 is announced but, at our last check, unpublished, with the €53bn figure attributed to it coming from a minister’s speech. Italy’s national plan sets no visitor targets. None of these tools is yet visible in Portuguese data, where foreign demand is flat, a different problem from the one Barcelona or Santorini is solving.

Where the benchmark breaks

Five gaps limit what can be said. UN Tourism’s country-level arrivals for 2019, 2024 and 2025, the usual headcount yardstick, could not be retrieved, so headcount comparisons rest on national sources with different definitions: Spain’s Frontur 96.8M, the Bank of Greece’s 37.98M excluding cruise passengers and INE’s 29.9M non-resident tourists for Portugal. Italy has no like-for-like annual series from Eurostat, and ISTAT’s flash gives percentages without levels. Portugal’s ten-bed threshold puts its comparison on a narrower base than Spain’s. Croatia reports 110.1M nights through eVisitor against 94.8M in Eurostat. The 15.3M gap is 10.56M non-commercial stays and about 4.7M by elimination, probably nautical charter. Hotel rates exist for Portugal and Spain only.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travelers. Portugal and Spain are the two markets with year-round demand, and Portugal’s receipts per night have grown about as fast as Spain’s (+36.5% against +34.3%). Croatia and Greece are the markets where timing matters, with two-thirds and just over half of nights falling in July to September, so shoulder months change the experience most there. For a direct comparison of two places, see our guides to Portugal or Spain and Greece vs Portugal.

Tourism businesses and investors. Portugal’s growth since 2019 came from more guests on shorter stays and, in 2025, from residents. With foreign nights flat, revenue growth depends on rates, and consumer-price accommodation rates are already 44% above 2019. Anyone comparing Portugal with Spain on 2019 growth is looking at a lead that prices have erased, since real receipts are level (+15.7% against +16.1%). The thresholds that would change the view are foreign-night growth above Spain’s 1.35% for 2026 as a whole, which would show the stall is over, and a second year below 1%, which would put Portugal with Croatia at the bottom. Lisbon’s slot ceiling and a published 2035 strategy with targets are the two structural unknowns.

Journalists and analysts. The safe figures are nights +15.3% against +9.2%, +8.9% and +4.0% since 2019 (Eurostat), receipts of €29.1bn (+58.8%), foreign nights +0.6% in 2025 and +0.35% in January to August 2026, €485 of receipts per foreign night, a 36.3% July to September share, a top-three market share of 38.5%, and Italy’s like-for-like nights of about +9.2% since 2019 (derived). Do not repeat Italy’s 22.6% or 18.8%, an EU rise of 4.1%, Croatia’s “16 to 20% of GDP” without naming exports, Portugal’s “20% of GDP”, Greece’s “40 million”, 750 million Italian nights, or “one of Europe’s fastest-growing markets” for 2025. The series finding this article adds is that Portugal’s lead is a 2019-clock lead. On the four momentum measures it trails, and it is the first five-country spine we can extend each quarter.