Visitor figures Bruges 2024
In 2024 Bruges welcomed eight million day- and overnight tourists in the historic city centre (roundup). The city received an average of 27,000 visitors every day in 2024. Counts based on mobile data show that 4 in 10 people are visitors, 6 in 10 are residents of Bruges or the wider surroundings (day recreationists).
The city council is fully aware that tourism brings both benefits and challenges. Tourism is very important for Bruges' economy and employment in and around the city (total turnover from day and residential tourism is estimated at € 542 million for 2024). But it is also important to ensure a good balance between the well-being of residents and the economic importance of tourism.
Trends
The number of domestic visitors seems to be stabilizing. In line with the global trend, it is mainly international tourism that is growing in Bruges. Accommodation tourism only benefits from international growth to a limited extent. The number of overnight stays has grown mainly because the length of stay has increased. Specifically as far as hotels are concerned, we see similar occupancy in 2024 as in 2023 (70%), turnover increases slightly here, but mainly due to a slightly higher room price and a longer length of stay.
Need for a turnaround
The city government has little to no impact on the further growth of tourism, but Bruges is going to work on the type and form of tourism in the city. Residential tourism is the backbone of tourism in Bruges. With 14% of the number of visitors, it is very compact in size but accounts for 53% of tourism turnover.
Despite the good to very good satisfaction scores, the city council discerns a clear concern in visitor feedback: the city's temporary residents, like our own, experience - for the first time - a slightly diminished quality of life and experience due to the crowds at certain times, and in certain places. This development also puts pressure on the city's center function, while the administration wants to strengthen this very center function.
Keeping support for tourism high among residents
The city council therefore advocates a fundamental rethinking of tourism in which added value is no longer named from the volumes generated by tourism and in which the social cost is taken more into account.
Bruges is a hospitable city, where people from all over the world feel welcome - and the council wants to keep it that way. Bruges owes its mental and material wealth to the diversity of its visitors, a tradition that has shaped the city since the Middle Ages. We are therefore working on a concrete plan to manage hospitality more actively. This way, the city will keep both the support for tourism among its inhabitants and the attractiveness for the most desired visitors high.
Click here for the original press release (in Dutch).