Cyprus recorded 1.96 million short-term rental nights in the second quarter of 2025

On January 9, 2026, the European Union statistical office, Eurostat, reported that guests booked 1.96 million nights in short-term rental accommodation in Cyprus between April and June 2025. This volume placed Cyprus among the active short-term rental markets in the European Union, reflecting strong demand during the spring and early summer travel season.

The figures formed part of a broader expansion of platform-based tourism across the European Union, where short-stay rentals booked through major online platforms recorded strong growth. In the third quarter of 2025, which covers the peak summer travel months of July, August, and September, guests spent 398.1 million nights in short-term rental accommodation across the bloc. This represented an increase of 8.7 per cent compared with the third quarter of 2024 and a rise of 28.2 per cent compared with the same period in 2023.

What the data shows

The data released by Eurostat on January 9, 2026, showed a clear upward trajectory for short-term rentals booked through collaborative platforms such as Airbnb, Booking, and Expedia. Across the European Union, the 398.1 million nights spent by guests in the third quarter of 2025 demonstrated sustained demand during the peak summer travel season. This quarterly total was 8.7 per cent higher than the guest nights recorded in the third quarter of 2024, and 28.2 per cent higher than the guest nights recorded in the third quarter of 2023.

On a monthly level, the largest year-on-year increase during the summer of 2025 occurred in July, when nights spent in short-term rentals rose by 10.0 per cent compared to July 2024. The subsequent months of August and September 2025 each recorded an annual growth rate of 8.0 per cent. This monthly pattern indicated that while the peak holiday months remained highly active, demand was distributed across the entire summer quarter, with July experiencing the most rapid acceleration in bookings.

In Cyprus, the second quarter of 2025 saw guests book 1.96 million nights in short-term rental accommodation. This regional and national breakdown highlighted how smaller Mediterranean destinations were capturing a share of the expanding platform-based tourism market. While Cyprus neared the 2 million night milestone in the second quarter, the overall European market remained heavily concentrated in a few dominant regions.

How it was measured

The figures were produced by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, using an experimental dataset. This dataset tracks short-stay accommodation offered via large online collaborative platforms, specifically Airbnb, Booking, and Expedia. The data is shared directly by these platforms with Eurostat under a data-sharing agreement designed to improve the transparency of the short-term rental market across Europe.

The statistics were released at two different geographical levels and timeframes. Eurostat published national-level data for the third quarter of 2025, which includes the months of July, August, and September. For regional-level data, which provides a more granular look at specific tourism hotspots within member states, the statistical office released figures for the second quarter of 2025, covering the months of April, May, and June.

This experimental database was designed to complement traditional tourism statistics. Traditional reporting structures often rely on hotel registries and physical guest check-ins, which can miss a significant portion of the accommodation market. By collecting booking data directly from the digital platforms that facilitate these stays, Eurostat aimed to provide policymakers, destination managers, and industry stakeholders with a clearer view of the actual scale, growth patterns, and regional exposure of the short-term rental sector.

Regional concentration across the bloc

The regional data for the second quarter of 2025 revealed a high level of geographical concentration in short-stay rental demand. A small number of established tourism markets accounted for the vast majority of guest nights booked across the European Union. Southern and coastal regions, alongside major urban centres, remained the primary drivers of platform-based tourism.

Andalucia in Spain emerged as the single most popular destination in the European Union, recording 13.3 million guest nights in the second quarter of 2025. It was followed by Jadranska Hrvatska, a coastal region in Croatia, which recorded 9.6 million nights. Île-de-France, the region encompassing Paris and its surrounding metropolitan area in France, ranked third with 9.0 million nights.

According to Eurostat, the 20 most popular tourist regions in the European Union during the second quarter of 2025 were concentrated in just five countries. The distribution of these top 20 regions was as follows:

• Spain accounted for six of the most popular regions.
• France accounted for six of the most popular regions.
• Italy accounted for five of the most popular regions, which included Sicily, Lazio, Tuscany, Lombardy, and Veneto.
• Portugal accounted for two of the most popular regions.
• Croatia accounted for one of the most popular regions.

This geographic concentration highlights that even as platform-based accommodation expands into smaller national markets like Cyprus, the overall European short-term rental market continues to be dominated by traditional leisure and cultural hotspots in Western and Southern Europe.

The broader Cyprus tourism economy

To understand the context of the 1.96 million guest nights booked in Cyprus, it is useful to examine the wider tourism performance figures released by the Cyprus Statistical Service. These figures showed strong overall financial growth for the island's tourism sector during the autumn of 2025, even as individual visitor spending patterns began to shift.

In October 2025, Cyprus' tourism revenue reached €458.60 million, representing an increase of 12.4 per cent compared to the €407.90 million recorded in October 2024. The cumulative revenue for the first ten months of the year, from January to October 2025, rose by 15 per cent year on year to reach €3.43 billion. These figures indicated that the island was successfully generating higher total earnings from its tourism industry.

However, despite the increase in overall revenue, the data showed a decline in average spending per visitor. In October 2025, the average expenditure per person fell by 4 per cent to €852.80. This decline suggested that while more visitors were arriving or staying in Cyprus, they were spending less money individually during their trips.

The Cyprus Statistical Service also provided a breakdown of visitor demographics and daily spending habits for October 2025. Visitors from the United Kingdom remained the largest single market, accounting for 31.4 per cent of all arrivals. These British tourists spent an average of €108.42 per day. In comparison, tourists arriving from Israel recorded the highest daily spend at €132.12 per day, while visitors from Germany spent an average of €111.79 per day. This variation in daily spending highlights the different financial contributions of key source markets to the Cypriot tourism economy.

Who these figures affected

The sustained growth of short-term rental nights booked through online platforms directly affected hosts, property managers, and institutional investors across Europe. For individual hosts and professional property managers in Cyprus, the 1.96 million guest nights recorded in the second quarter of 2025 confirmed that demand for alternative accommodations remained resilient. This volume of bookings provided a steady stream of occupancy, allowing local operators to maintain consistent revenue streams during the transition from spring to the peak summer season.

For institutional investors looking at European real estate and hospitality, the Eurostat data reinforced the permanent role of digital platforms in the accommodation market. The 28.2 per cent increase in EU-wide guest nights in the third quarter of 2025 compared to the third quarter of 2023 demonstrated that short-term rentals were not a temporary trend but a structurally growing segment. This growth pattern makes short-term rental properties an increasingly attractive asset class, particularly in high-demand regions like Andalucia, Jadranska Hrvatska, and Île-de-France.

Traditional hotel operators were also affected by these trends. The continued rise in platform-based bookings highlights the intense competition hotels face, especially during peak travel seasons. As short-term rentals become more embedded in the travel booking process, hotel operators must adjust their pricing and marketing strategies to compete with the diverse inventory offered on platforms like Airbnb and Booking. The experimental dataset from Eurostat provides these traditional operators with a clearer view of the market scale and regional exposure of their digital competitors.

What the figures did not tell you

While the Eurostat dataset and the Cyprus Statistical Service reports offer valuable insights, they also leave several key questions unanswered. First, the Eurostat figures do not provide a breakdown of performance by individual platform. Although the data is collected from Airbnb, Booking, and Expedia, the report aggregates these sources, making it impossible to determine which platform is driving the majority of the bookings or whether one platform is gaining market share at the expense of others.

Second, the guest night figures do not reveal the average daily rate or the occupancy rates of individual properties. A high number of total guest nights does not automatically translate into profitability for every host or manager. If the supply of short-term rental listings grew faster than the demand, individual properties may have experienced lower occupancy rates and downward pressure on pricing, even as the total number of guest nights across the country or region increased.

Additionally, the Cyprus tourism revenue data does not isolate the financial contribution of short-term rentals from that of traditional hotels. The €3.43 billion in revenue recorded between January and October 2025 represents the entire tourism sector. Without a specific breakdown of how much of this revenue was generated by guests staying in short-term rentals versus hotels, it is difficult to measure the exact economic impact of platform-based accommodation on the island's economy. The decline in average spending per visitor to €852.80 in October 2025 also remains unexplained; the data does not show whether this drop was driven by cheaper accommodation costs, shorter lengths of stay, or reduced spending on dining and entertainment.

What to take from it

The data from Eurostat and the Cyprus Statistical Service provides a valuable benchmark for short-term rental operators to assess their performance against broader market trends.

• Compare your local occupancy and guest night trends with regional benchmarks to determine if you are capturing your fair share of market demand.
• Monitor visitor demographic shifts, such as the high daily spend of Israeli and German visitors in Cyprus, to tailor your marketing and property amenities to the highest-spending guest segments.
• Track the relationship between total market guest nights and your individual average daily rate to ensure that market-wide volume growth is not leading to localized oversupply and price erosion.
• Watch for future Eurostat experimental data releases to see if the concentration of demand in major regions begins to decentralize into smaller, secondary markets.