A Eurostat study has shown that in 2025, Malta registered the second-highest tourism intensity in the European Union.

Eurostat calculated these results by comparing EU countries' ratios of total nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments, by domestic and foreign tourists, per inhabitant, i.e., relative to the total permanent resident population of the respective country.

Malta recorded a ratio of 21.7 nights spent in tourist accommodation establishments per inhabitant, only trailing Croatia (24.5 nights per inhabitant). Following Malta, with the third-highest tourism intensity in the EU last year was Cyprus (19 nights per inhabitant).

The ratio for the EU overall was 7.0 nights per inhabitant - over three times less. In 2024, the year prior, the EU's tourism intensity was registered at 6.7 nights per inhabitant. The total number of nights spent in tourist accommodations in the EU as a whole rose by 4.1% in 2025, totalling at 3.1 billion nights.

80.9% (2.5 billion) of the nights in tourist accommodation were spent by intra-EU tourists, i.e., tourists from other EU member states. Meanwhile, 10.4% were spent by tourists from other European countries, one in 20 (4.9%) were occupied by people from the Americas, one in 40 (2.6%) were spent by visitors from Asia, 0.5% of all nights were spent by Oceanian tourists, and 0.4% by African tourists.

Eurostat noted that between 2024 and 2025, the largest increases in the total nights spent in tourism accommodation establishments in the EU by tourists came from Asia (+15.4%) and Africa (13.7%). It was also observed that nights spent by tourists from the Americas (North, Central, and South America combined into one category) has more than doubled (+101.9%) in the last decade, since 2015.

The lowest tourism intensity among the EU-27 in 2025 were recorded in Romania (1.6 nights per inhabitant), Latvia (2.7), and Poland and Slovakia (2.9 nights each).

The Eurostat data presented showed that Iceland, which is an EFTA country, boasted a greater tourism intensity than all EU countries. However, Iceland's total nights were estimated by using monthly data.

Eurostat stated that tourism intensity is an indicator of possible pressure that tourists place on local communities.

In the previous year's report, 2024, Malta had registered the second-largest percentage increase (+14.4%) in nights spent in tourist accommodation when compared to the previous year. Malta had only, and narrowly, trailed Cyprus (+14.5%) in 2024. That year, Malta and Cyprus had recorded around double the yearly growth in tourism nights as third-ranked Latvia (+7.4%).