City-break tourism is doing well according to European Cities Marketing

In a troubled economic environment, European Cities’ tourism remains strong and keeps growing with 5.7% in total bednights and 6.3% in international bednights in 2015.Even though Russian (-30.4%) and Japanese (-6.1%) markets decreased, the growth of Chinese (+28.7%) and Spanish (+10.9%) markets alone were able to make up the loss. In addition, the remaining 5 source markets all showed an increase between 3.7% up to 7.3% increase in 2015 compared to 2014.Overall, the ECM Benchmarking Report 2016 states that over the last 5 years (2011‐2015), bednights in ECM Benchmarking Report cities (+15.9%) have been increasing at a faster rate than of the 28 EU nations (+10.9%). Thus confirming once again that city tourism is growing much faster than the national tourism in Europe.Top Performing CitiesThe 2015 top four cities in terms of total bednights held their rankings in 2015. London was the top performing city with the highest number of bednights as well as the highest growth rate (+9.8%) in the top 15 cities in terms of total bednights. Stockholm moved up two more in the rankings (11th) and had the second highest growth rate (9.7%). Paris, Berlin, and Rome maintained their position in the top performing cities, despite the fact that Paris had a 2.1% decrease in bednights in 2015. Madrid became the 5th in the rankings this year, passing its rival Barcelona with a growth rate of 8.7% being the third highest growth rate in the top 15 cities; followed by Lisbon (+7.5%) in terms of growth rate, which made the top 15 list this year.Table 1. Top 15 European Cities – Total Bednights 2015 DestinationBednights 20152014-15% change1*London77,570,0009.8%2*Paris47,959,516-2.1%3Berlin30,250,0665.4%4*Rome26,420,6204.1%5*Madrid17,951,7428.7%6*Barcelona17,656,3293.3%7Istanbul16,899,5096.4%8Prague15,917,2657.9%9*Vienna15,138,6705.3%10*Munich14,055,9684.5%11*Stockholm12,918,8909.7%12*Amsterdam12,898,0002.9%13Hamburg12,639,2955.3%14*Dublin10,498,3604.9%15*Lisbon9,061,0777.5%*Refer to cities with different definitions and data rectifications.Source: European Cities Marketing Benchmarking Report 2016