Booking.com and Oxford Economics: travel booked through the platform supported €691 billion in economic activity in Europe
Travel booked through Booking.com in 2025 supported €691 billion in total economic activity in Europe, according to new research prepared by Tourism Economics, a company within Oxford Economics. The report, published in June 2026, covers 29 European countries, namely the members of the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and it does not refer only to travelers from Europe but to all trips to those countries booked through the platform from source markets around the world. According to the study’s findings, travelers who used Booking.com directly spent €291 billion during their stays. That money, Oxford Economics states, flowed through accommodation, hospitality, retail, transport, entertainment and other services that depend on tourism demand. The total impact includes direct spending, effects on supply chains, wage spending by employees in related activities, and cross-border economic flows within Europe.
What the amounts in the report mean
According to Oxford Economics, €691 billion does not represent Booking.com’s revenue, but an estimate of the total economic output connected with trips booked through the platform. In the model used for the analysis, the direct impact occurs when travelers pay for accommodation, food, local transport, recreation, shopping and other services during their trips. The indirect impact occurs when hotels, restaurants, transport providers, shops and activity organizers purchase goods and services from their own suppliers. The induced impact occurs when employees in those connected sectors spend their wages in the wider economy. The report additionally includes cross-border effects, because European tourism supply chains do not necessarily end in the country where the guest spent money.
The most important indicators from the research are the following:
- €691 billion in total economic output connected with trips booked through Booking.com in Europe in 2025.
- €344 billion contribution to GDP, or gross value added, according to Oxford Economics’ methodology.
- €291 billion in direct traveler spending during stays.
- 4.7 million supported jobs in the European tourism ecosystem and related activities.
- €175 billion in wages and €137 billion in tax revenues, according to the report’s estimate.
Oxford Economics states that the direct traveler spending of €291 billion by itself supported €152 billion in GDP and almost 2.5 million jobs. The difference between direct spending and the contribution to GDP is explained by the fact that GDP measures value added, not the entire amount paid by the consumer. Part of every expenditure goes to intermediate inputs, for example energy, foodstuffs, goods, maintenance services, logistics and other costs that are not added again in order to avoid double counting. Precisely because of this, total output, direct spending and the contribution to GDP are not the same indicators, but three different ways of observing the impact of tourism activity.
Tourism spending did not remain only in hotels
One of the key conclusions of the research is that the effect of trips booked through digital platforms does not stop in the accommodation sector. According to the Oxford Economics report, more than half of traveler spending ended up outside traditional hospitality and accommodation, in categories such as transport, shopping, recreation, sport, entertainment and other local services. Among international travelers, almost 44 percent of total spending related to accommodation and food and drink, while 56 percent was broader travel spending. Among domestic travelers in the analyzed countries, around 42 percent of spending went to hospitality, and 58 percent to other categories.
This distribution is important for understanding why tourism demand has a broader effect than the revenue of hotels or private renters. If a traveler books accommodation in a smaller town, spending most often continues in local shops, restaurants, museums, transport, sports and cultural facilities, and among suppliers who are not directly visible to the guest. Oxford Economics states in the report that international travelers, outside hospitality, directed a significant part of their spending to shopping, while among domestic travelers entertainment was the second-largest category. Such a structure explains why digital demand for accommodation can have an impact on very different activities, from small shops and driving services to agricultural suppliers, cultural spaces and maintenance companies.
The chain of effects expanded across borders
The Oxford Economics analysis especially emphasizes the cross-border effects of tourism spending. According to the report, direct traveler spending triggered an additional €187 billion in indirect business revenues, because tourism companies purchased goods and services from their suppliers. Another €118 billion arose through induced effects, that is, through the spending of wages by employees in sectors connected with that activity. Since European economies are strongly connected, part of these indirect and induced effects spilled across national borders. Oxford Economics estimates that cross-border effects reached €94 billion in output.
The report also states that of the total contribution to GDP, €152 billion was connected with direct spending, €88 billion with indirect effects, €63 billion with induced effects, and €41 billion with cross-border trade flows between the countries covered by the analysis. In the labor market, travel connected with Booking.com supported almost 4.8 million jobs, with around half a million jobs supported in countries different from those in which the initial spending occurred. According to the same source, around €21 billion in wages was also supported in these cross-border effects. This shows that tourism spending in one destination can create demand for products, services and labor in other European economies.
Why the role of small and medium-sized enterprises is emphasized
Booking.com, in the announcement presenting the research, highlights that the results show how digital tourism platforms can help small and medium-sized enterprises reach international demand. The company states that the platform connects accommodation properties, transport and other tourism services with travelers from different countries, thereby giving smaller service providers visibility that they would find difficult to achieve through their own sales channels alone. From the perspective of the tourism economy, this is particularly important for independent hotels, family-run properties, apartments, guesthouses and smaller providers of experiences, because their market availability no longer relies exclusively on local promotion or traditional intermediaries.
Glenn Fogel, the chief executive officer of Booking.com, said in the company’s announcement that tourism is one of Europe’s strong economic drivers and that technology can help smaller companies compete with larger ones and reach travelers from different parts of the world. David Goodger, Director for the EMEA region at Oxford Economics, emphasized that Europe’s travel economy does not depend only on major destinations, but also on the ability of smaller enterprises and regional economies to access demand. In his assessment, the effects extend far beyond accommodation, because they support wages, tax revenues, jobs and business activity in retail, transport, food services, entertainment and wider supply chains.
European tourism in the record year of 2025
The broader context confirms that 2025 was a very strong year for European tourism. According to Eurostat data published in March 2026, almost 3.1 billion nights were recorded in tourist accommodation establishments in the European Union, which is 2.2 percent more than in 2024. Eurostat states that nights by international guests increased by 3.4 percent, while nights by domestic guests increased by 1.1 percent. Most nights in the European Union were concentrated in four countries: Spain, Italy, France and Germany, which together accounted for 61.7 percent of the total number of nights. These data do not cover the same geographical scope as the Oxford Economics report, because they refer to the European Union, but they show that travel in Europe continued to grow even after the strong recovery in the years following pandemic restrictions.
Eurostat data also indicate that growth was not distributed equally across all countries. According to that statistical service, the number of tourist nights in 2025 increased in 24 of the 27 members of the European Union. The highest annual growth rates were recorded by Malta and Poland, while decreases were reported in Luxembourg, Romania and Ireland. For tourism platforms, destinations and service providers, such differences mean that overall demand growth does not remove the need for careful management of destinations, prices, labor, infrastructure and seasonality. Growth in bookings and overnight stays can bring revenues and jobs, but at the same time it puts pressure on local capacities, traffic, housing, municipal services and the quality of the experience for residents and visitors.
Digital platforms between growth, regulation and sustainability
The results published by Booking.com and Oxford Economics come at a time when the discussion in Europe about the role of digital platforms in tourism continues. On the one hand, such platforms increase the visibility of destinations, make it easier to compare offers and enable smaller service providers to access the international market. On the other hand, the rapid growth of short-term rentals and digital distribution in certain cities has raised questions about housing availability, local regulation, data transparency and the balance between tourism demand and the life of local communities. For this reason, the economic effects of platforms are increasingly viewed together with issues of destination management, tax compliance and sustainable tourism development.
The World Travel & Tourism Council, in its latest analysis for 2026, forecasts that the travel and tourism sector in Europe will grow faster than the broader regional economy. According to the WTTC, tourism GDP in Europe is expected to rise by 3.6 percent in 2026, while broader European GDP growth is estimated at 1 percent. The organization emphasizes that digital technologies, investments in infrastructure, skills development and smart destination management will be important for maintaining the sector’s competitiveness. Within that framework, the Oxford Economics report shows not only the size of spending connected with one platform, but also the way in which digitally mediated tourism demand spreads through jobs, wages, tax revenues and local business networks.
For public policies, the data from the report may be relevant because they present tourism as a source of revenue that spreads significantly further than the direct booking of accommodation. According to Oxford Economics’ findings, total tax revenues connected with the analyzed activity amounted to €137 billion, of which €80 billion was connected with direct fiscal effects, €33 billion with indirect effects, €14 billion with induced effects and €10 billion with cross-border trade flows. Such figures explain why governments and local authorities simultaneously view tourism as a development opportunity and as an area that requires careful planning. The success of destinations will not depend only on the number of guests, but also on how much revenue is distributed through the local economy, how many jobs remain high-quality and stable, and how growth is aligned with the capacities of cities, coastal areas, rural destinations and transport infrastructure.
Sources:
- Booking.com – announcement about the Oxford Economics research and key economic indicators for Europe in 2025 (link)
- Oxford Economics / Tourism Economics – report “Economic impact supported by Booking.com in Europe 2025” with methodology and detailed impact indicators (link)
- Oxford Economics – report page and summary of key findings on total output, GDP, jobs, wages and taxes (link)
- Eurostat – data on the record number of tourist nights in the European Union in 2025 and growth by types of guests (link)
- World Travel & Tourism Council – analysis and forecasts for growth of the travel and tourism sector in Europe and worldwide in 2026 (link)