KINGDOM OF BELGIUM | Tourism reaches new heights as record visitor numbers underline the country’s growing appeal

Today is the National Holiday of Belgium. On 21 July 1831, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha took the constitutional oath to become King of the Belgians.

Belgium‘s tourism sector enjoyed its strongest year on record in 2025, confirming that the country has fully recovered from the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the latest figures from Statbel, Belgian tourist accommodation registered 46,136,112 overnight stays during the year, an increase of 2.9% compared with 2024 and the first time the country has surpassed the 46-million mark. The figures also represent a clear improvement over pre-pandemic levels, underlining the resilience of Belgium’s visitor economy.

The record was achieved through a combination of strong domestic demand and continued growth in international tourism. Belgian accommodation establishments welcomed around 19.6 million arrivals during the year, with visitors staying an average of just over two nights. 

While Belgium is often regarded as a short-break destination rather than a country for lengthy holidays, the high number of arrivals reflects its importance as a city-break destination, business travel hub and gateway to Western Europe.

Hotels remained the dominant accommodation type, accounting for approximately 46% of all overnight stays. Campgrounds experienced the fastest growth, recording an increase of more than 10%, reflecting a broader European trend towards outdoor holidays and more affordable travel options. Holiday parks, apartments, guesthouses and other accommodation also contributed to the sector’s continued expansion.

Flanders remains Belgium’s tourism powerhouse

Flanders continues to attract the largest share of visitors. Nearly 63% of all overnight stays in Belgium were recorded in the northern region during 2025, while Wallonia accounted for roughly one-fifth of the national total. Brussels remained an important destination in its own right, particularly for international business travel, conferences and European institutions, although overnight stays there remained broadly stable compared with the previous year.

Figures from Tourism Flanders show that the region welcomed approximately 15.4 million visitors in 2025, an increase of around 3% compared with 2024. Overnight stays reached approximately 36.3 million, illustrating the region’s dominant position within Belgian tourism. Both domestic and international markets contributed to this growth. Around 7 million Belgian visitors holidayed within Flanders, while international arrivals increased to approximately 8.3 million.

West Flanders remains Belgium’s busiest tourism province thanks to the Belgian coast, historic Bruges and seaside resorts such as Ostend, Knokke-Heist, and De Panne. Meanwhile, the Flemish art cities of Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Leuven,  and Mechelen continue to attract millions of international cultural tourists each year. Domestic visitors continue to favour the coast, while overseas visitors are generally drawn to the country’s medieval city centres, museums, gastronomy and heritage sites.

Wallonia has also strengthened its position. The region recorded the strongest annual growth of Belgium’s three regions in 2025, with overnight stays increasing by approximately 6%. The Ardennes remain Wallonia’s principal tourism region, attracting visitors for hiking, cycling, kayaking and nature tourism, while destinations such as Durbuy, Spa, Namur, Dinant, and Liège continue to grow in popularity.

Brussels occupies a unique position within Belgian tourism. As the capital of Belgium and the European Union, the city attracts a large volume of business travellers alongside leisure visitors. European institutions, NATO headquarters, international conferences and trade fairs generate a steady flow of overnight stays throughout the year, complementing visitors drawn to attractions such as the Grand Place, Atomium, Royal Museums of Fine Arts, and Art Nouveau architecture.

Belgium attracts visitors from across Europe

Belgium’s international tourism market remains heavily dominated by neighbouring countries. The Netherlands continues to provide the largest number of foreign visitors, followed by Germany and France. These three neighbouring markets benefit from excellent road and rail connections, shared borders and relatively short travel times, making Belgium an attractive destination for weekend breaks and short holidays.

The United Kingdom also remains an important source market, particularly for Brussels, Bruges and World War I battlefields around Ypres. American visitors continue to represent Belgium’s largest long-haul market, attracted by Belgian history, beer culture, gastronomy, European institutions and military heritage. Other growing overseas markets include Canada, China, Japan, and South Korea, although Asian tourism is still rebuilding following the pandemic.

Belgium’s compact geography also contributes to its appeal. Many international visitors combine Belgium with neighbouring countries such as France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg or Germany, making multi-country itineraries particularly common. Cities such as Brussels, Antwerp, and Bruges are easily accessible within a few hours from London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Cologne.

Air, rail and road all play important roles

Belgium benefits from one of Europe’s most accessible transport networks. Brussels Airport remains the country’s primary international gateway and handled 24.4 million passengers during 2025, representing growth of 3.3% despite the disruption caused by several national strikes. The airport expanded its route network further during the year, strengthening Belgium’s international connectivity.

Brussels South Charleroi Airport also continues to serve millions of mainly leisure passengers, particularly through low-cost airlines, while Antwerp International Airport, Ostend-Bruges Airport and Liège Airport provide additional passenger services on a smaller scale.

High-speed rail forms another cornerstone of Belgian tourism. Eurostar connects Brussels directly with London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Cologne, while TGV inOui, ICE and numerous international InterCity services make Belgium one of Europe’s easiest countries to reach by train. Brussels has become one of Europe’s most important railway hubs, allowing visitors to travel quickly between major European capitals without flying.

Road travel also remains extremely important, particularly for Dutch, German, French and Luxembourg visitors, many of whom arrive by private car. Belgium’s central location within Western Europe and dense motorway network make driving an attractive option for neighbouring markets.

Short stays dominate the tourism market

Belgium differs from Mediterranean holiday destinations because most visitors come for relatively short stays. With an average stay of just over two nights, tourism is characterised by city breaks, business trips, conference attendance and weekend holidays rather than lengthy seaside vacations.

This pattern is particularly evident in Brussels, where business travel plays a major role throughout the year. In Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp, weekend tourism remains especially important, while the Belgian coast attracts longer summer holidays for domestic travellers.

Seasonality is therefore less pronounced than in many European destinations. Although July and August remain the busiest months, tourism demand remains relatively strong throughout the year thanks to conferences, European institutions, cultural events, Christmas markets and Belgium’s extensive calendar of festivals.

Early 2026 continues the positive trend

The first months of 2026 indicate that Belgium’s tourism sector continues to perform strongly. Tourism authorities across the country have reported sustained visitor demand, while Brussels Airport and accommodation providers continue to benefit from growing international travel. Belgium also continues to outperform pre-pandemic tourism levels, reflecting broader growth across the European tourism market.

The country’s diverse tourism offering remains one of its greatest strengths. Visitors can experience medieval UNESCO World Heritage cities, First and Second World War history, internationally renowned gastronomy, world-famous beers, comic strip culture, Art Nouveau architecture, major music festivals, North Sea beaches and the forests of the Ardennes, all within relatively short travelling distances.

Combined with its central location, excellent transport infrastructure and multilingual population, Belgium continues to strengthen its reputation as one of Europe’s most accessible and varied destinations. The record figures recorded in 2025 suggest that the country’s tourism industry has entered a new phase of sustained growth, with both domestic and international visitors continuing to discover everything Belgium has to offer.

Overtourism remains a local rather than national challenge

Unlike destinations such as Venice, Barcelona or Amsterdam, Belgium is generally not considered to suffer from widespread overtourism. Although the country welcomed more than 46 million overnight stays in 2025 and continues to see tourism growth in 2026, visitor numbers are spread across numerous cities, regions and attractions. The result is that Belgium’s tourism infrastructure has so far been able to absorb increasing demand without creating the systemic overcrowding seen in some of Europe’s most visited destinations.

That does not mean Belgium is free from tourism pressures. The country’s most famous destinations experience significant congestion during peak periods, particularly on weekends, public holidays and throughout the summer. Bruges is by far the best-known example. 

With a historic city centre of barely a few square kilometres and around 120,000 inhabitants, the UNESCO World Heritage city can receive tens of thousands of day visitors on busy days. Cruise passengers arriving in nearby Zeebrugge, coach tours and day-trippers from Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam and London can temporarily overwhelm the medieval streets around the Markt, Burg and canals. Local residents have increasingly expressed concerns about congestion, souvenir shops replacing neighbourhood businesses and rising housing costs in the historic centre.

Brussels experiences a different kind of tourism pressure. Rather than suffering from classic overtourism, the Belgian capital sees periodic peaks linked to major events, European summits, international conferences and Christmas markets. Areas such as the Grand Place, Mont des Arts, the Atomium and the European Quarter can become crowded, but visitor flows are generally dispersed across a much larger metropolitan area than in Bruges. Antwerp, and Ghent likewise experience busy weekends and holiday periods, yet both cities continue to accommodate tourism growth without the severe overcrowding observed elsewhere in Europe.

Belgium’s coastline presents another seasonal challenge. During warm summer weekends, especially when temperatures exceed 25 °C, hundreds of thousands of Belgians head to the North Sea resorts. Traffic congestion on roads leading to the coast, crowded beaches and full trains have become familiar scenes during peak holiday periods. However, this is primarily a phenomenon driven by domestic tourism rather than international visitors. Outside the summer months, the coast remains considerably quieter.

The Ardennes face a similar pattern. Popular destinations such as Durbuy, La Roche-en-Ardenne, Han-sur-Lesse, and Spa can become extremely busy during school holidays, particularly as outdoor recreation has grown in popularity since the pandemic. Nevertheless, the region’s large natural areas mean visitors are generally dispersed over a much wider area than in compact historic city centres.

Recognising these local pressures, tourism authorities have increasingly shifted their focus from simply attracting more visitors to managing tourism more sustainably. Tourism Flanders, for example, has adopted a strategy centred on ‘Travel to Tomorrow‘, which emphasises balancing the needs of visitors with those of local communities. Rather than pursuing growth for its own sake, the organisation encourages tourism that creates long-term benefits for residents, heritage and the local economy. This includes promoting lesser-known destinations, extending visitor stays, encouraging off-season travel and distributing tourists more evenly across the region.

Improved rail connectivity also plays a role in dispersing visitor flows. Belgium’s dense railway network makes it easy for tourists to combine several cities during a single trip, reducing pressure on individual destinations. A visitor based in Brussels, for example, can easily make day trips to Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven, Mechelen or Namur in less than an hour, helping spread tourism spending across multiple regions.

In short, Belgium’s tourism success has not yet translated into a nationwide overtourism problem. While certain locations, most notably Bruges, parts of the Belgian coast and some Ardennes hotspots, experience periods of overcrowding, these are largely seasonal or highly localised. As visitor numbers continue to grow, the challenge for Belgium will not be attracting more tourists, but ensuring that future growth remains balanced, sustainable and beneficial for both visitors and residents.

Belgians remain enthusiastic travellers themselves

Belgium is not only a destination for international visitors. Its residents are also among Europe’s most frequent travellers, helped by relatively high living standards, generous annual leave, the country’s central location and easy access to road, rail and air connections. 

Provisional figures from Statbel show that Belgian residents made approximately 32 million trips involving at least one overnight stay in 2025. Around 9.8 million of these journeys took place within Belgium, while roughly 22 million had a foreign destination. In other words, almost 69% of recorded trips crossed the Belgian border, although domestic tourism still represented close to one-third of the total.

France was comfortably the most popular foreign destination. Belgian residents made approximately 7 million trips to France in 2025, accounting for almost 32% of all foreign trips and around 22% of their total domestic and international travel. The popularity of France is hardly surprising. 

Much of the country can be reached by car or train within a few hours, French is spoken by a large share of Belgium’s population, and the destination offers almost every type of holiday sought by Belgian travellers, from weekends in Paris and Lille to camping holidays, Atlantic beaches, Alpine skiing and longer stays along the Mediterranean coast.

The Netherlands ranked second, receiving around 2.7 million Belgian trips. It represented approximately 12% of travel abroad and more than 8% of all overnight trips made by Belgian residents. Dutch cities, the Zeeland coast, holiday parks and nature areas are particularly accessible to travellers from Flanders, while cultural and linguistic familiarity make the Netherlands an easy destination for short breaks. Many of these journeys are made by car, although rail plays an important role for destinations such as Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Breda, and Maastricht.

Spain occupied third place with approximately 2.3 million trips, equivalent to just over 10% of Belgian journeys abroad. Unlike France and the Netherlands, Spain is primarily a longer holiday and air-travel destination. 

The mainland Mediterranean coast, Andalusia, Barcelona, Madrid, the Balearic Islands, and the Canary Islands all attract substantial numbers of Belgian visitors. Spain’s importance is particularly visible during the main summer holiday season, although the Canary Islands and southern Spanish cities also generate year-round demand.

Beyond the three leading destinations, Italy, Germany, Greece, and Portugal remain firmly established in the Belgian travel market. Italy combines city tourism with lakes, mountains and seaside holidays, while Germany attracts short-break, cultural and nature tourism. 

Greece and Portugal are more strongly associated with air travel, package holidays and summer sun. Morocco is another important destination, reflecting both its popularity as a holiday country and the strong personal and family connections between Belgium and Morocco. ABTO travel-intention surveys conducted during 2025 repeatedly placed countries including France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Germany, and Morocco among the destinations considered by Belgian travellers.

European destinations overwhelmingly dominate Belgian travel. Of the approximately 22 million foreign trips made in 2025, more than 18 million were to other European Union countries. This means that over 80% of outbound trips remained within the EU. The quarterly figures show a remarkably consistent pattern: 3 million of the 3.7 million foreign trips during the first quarter went to another EU country, as did 4.9 million of the 5.8 million foreign trips in the second quarter, 7.2 million of the 8.7 million in the third quarter and 3.2 million of the roughly 4 million in the final quarter.

Travel outside Europe consequently represents a much smaller, although still substantial, part of the market. Across the four quarters of 2025, Belgian residents made an estimated 2.1 million trips to destinations beyond Europe. Another approximately 1.9 million trips went to European countries outside the EU. Long-haul travel therefore remained secondary to journeys within Europe, but destinations in North America, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean continue to form an important segment, particularly for longer holidays, winter sunshine and visits to friends or relatives.

Within Belgium, the coast and the Ardennes dominate domestic travel. Together they received almost 6 million trips in 2025, or well over half of all domestic journeys. The North Sea coast remains particularly popular for summer holidays, weekends and short breaks, while the Ardennes attracts hikers, cyclists, families and groups staying in holiday homes. Belgian art cities, including Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Leuven, and Mechelen, form another important domestic category. During the first quarter alone, the coast received around 400,000 trips, while the Ardennes and art cities each attracted approximately 300,000.

Travel patterns also vary considerably by season. Statbel recorded 5.3 million trips in the first quarter of 2025, 8.3 million in the second quarter, 12.3 million during the peak third quarter and 6 million in the final three months of the year. The July-to-September period therefore accounted for almost 39% of the annual total. Even during that summer peak, however, Belgium remained important: 3.7 million trips, or 29.7%, had a domestic destination. In the final quarter, the domestic share rose to 34.4%, reflecting autumn weekends, Christmas market trips and holidays closer to home.

The 2025 data should be interpreted with some caution when comparing it with earlier years. Statbel changed its travel survey from quarterly to monthly data collection at the beginning of 2025. Asking respondents about their journeys more frequently reduces the likelihood that they forget short trips, meaning that more travel is now captured. Statbel therefore describes the change as a break in the statistical series and warns that the 2025 total cannot be compared directly with figures from previous years. Nevertheless, the new data provides a detailed picture of Belgian travel behaviour: Belgians holiday frequently, travel predominantly within Europe and display a particularly strong preference for neighbouring France and the Netherlands, while Spain remains their leading destination for a traditional southern European holiday.

21 July

• 2025: How Belgium has changed in the last 25 years.
• 2024: Which flags get to fly at Antwerp City Hall?.
• 2023: FREE STATE OF ANTWERP | The City could have run the parking lot.

Some tourism statistics

• France welcomes 102 million visitors and earns €77.5 billion from tourism in record-breaking 2025.
• BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS | Tortola at the centre of a record tourism boom.
• DOMINICAN REPUBLIC | 11.6 million international visitors in 2025.
• Aruba consolidates its position as a tourism powerhouse.
• United Kingdom tourism races past 45 million visitors as cross-Channel travel with Belgium grows.
• ITALY | More than 185 million visitors as tourism surges 7.1% in record year 2025.
• 8.7 billion rail trips in Europe in 2024 as Switzerland leads and Belgium’s data remain unavailable.
• NORWAY | Tourism breaks record with 40.6 million guest nights in 2025.
• NETHERLANDS | Rising international visitor numbers, domestic travel showed signs of stagnation in 2025.
• Taiwan tourism rebounds, Belgian market recovers, but cost pressures and geopolitical risks shape outlook.
• CURAÇAO | Tourism records for 2025, with 11,500 travellers from Belgium.
• International tourism to the United States continues to slide in 2026.
• Morocco records historic tourism year with 19.8 million visitors in 2025.
• Flanders continues to grow as a tourist destination with over 15 million visitors in 2025.
• Greece sets new tourism records in 2025 with nearly 38 million visitors.
• Thailand happy with Belgian visitor numbers and welcomes Tomorrowland festival.
• Belgian travel stats to the United States continued to decline throughout 2025.
• Is Greece too popular? 2024 tourism statistics raise overtourism concerns.
• TRAIN TRAVEL | European Union records 429 billion passenger-kilometres in 2023 but domestic travel still dominates.
• 5 million passengers flew from and to Brussels Airport in summer 2025.
• BELGIUM | Flemish museums attracted more than 4.8 million visitors in 2023.
• Belgium sees modest tourism growth in 2024, led by Flanders and Brussels.
• Travel in 2024: Spain, France, USA, China, Mexico lose ground and Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, UAE to grow market share.
• France, Spain, USA, China and Italy most visited countries in the world, Belgium 41st.
• France welcomed 100 million international visitors in 2024.
• Turkey welcomed 62 million international tourists who together spent $61 billion in 2024.
• SPAIN | 94 million international visitors and €108.7 billion tourism income in 2024.
• UN WORLD TOURISM BAROMETER | International tourism recovers pre-pandemic levels in 2024.
• Outside the EU, Europeans mostly travel to Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
• Intra-European travel mostly for fun and / or family.
• Europeans visit other European countries over 7 nights on average.