Brühl in a tourism frenzy: overnight stays rise to record levels!

Brühl in a tourism frenzy: overnight stays rise to record levels!

Tourism in Germany will also experience a boom in 2025. After the record year of 2024, which was marked by the European Football Championship, the number of overnight stays in the first half of 2025 shows a nationwide and continuing upward trend in North Rhine-Westphalia. These developments include a variety of accommodation facilities offering at least 10 beds or pitches. Loud Brühl North Rhine-Westphalia continues to be trendy with a steady increase in overnight stays.

Mona Neubaur, the Deputy Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, visited several tourist destinations in the region in August 2025 to highlight the economic importance of tourism. She noted that tourism in North Rhine-Westphalia provides over 650,000 jobs in private and business tourism. The success factors include the varied activities, the wide range of accommodation options and the easy accessibility.

Movement in Brühl

In 2024, Brühl already recorded 277,897 overnight stays in the first half of the year, while in 2025 this value increased to 300,540 overnight stays. Over the last few years, the annual number of overnight stays in Brühl has increased from around 65,000 in 2003 to over 620,000. This positive development is emphasized by Mayor Dieter Freytag, who sees the cooperation between tourism stakeholders as a central success factor. Brühl benefits from its central location in the Rhineland Nature Park and offers numerous attractions, including the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Max Ernst Museum, a climbing forest, a water ski facility and the famous Phantasialand.

In this context it stands out Tourism NRW highlights that overnight stays by foreign guests in the region are returning to pre-corona pandemic levels for the first time. The increase is not only due to the European Football Championship, but can also be seen in other regions and the rest of the year. Despite the trend towards increased long-distance travel, North Rhine-Westphalia remains an attractive holiday destination.

Sustainability and future prospects

The strategy for tourism in Brühl envisages socially acceptable, resource-saving and environmentally friendly development. The creation of resource-saving mobility offers and the preservation of living space for citizens are central goals. In the long term, Brühl is aiming for certification as a “sustainable travel destination” in the Rhineland metropolitan region in order to maintain the region’s high attractiveness for future generations.

Overall, North Rhine-Westphalia recorded over 54.5 million overnight stays in 2024, an increase of 1.7 percent compared to the record year 2023, while the number of guests rose by 4 percent to around 24.5 million. These figures underline the country's relevance as a location for conferences, trade fairs and business trips. Burkhard Schmidt-Schönefeldt, CEO of Tourismus NRW, highlights the attractiveness of the tourist offer and emphasizes the trend towards sustainable travel, which enables holidaymakers to reduce their emissions and gain more time for individual experiences.