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As the tourism industry has risen in the past decades, millions of people within Europe and abroad are moving away from their permanent residence to visit popular destinations. It has been estimated that this mobility accounts for around 9 % of the annual water consumption of the accommodation and food service sector in Europe (EEA, 2018b). The most important tourist attractions in Europe are large cities, such as Paris, London, Brussels, Rome, and the coastal areas and islands of the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the North Sea or the North East Atlantic. Currently, Europe attracts 50 % of the global international tourist arrivals, with nearly 20 % of them arriving in the Mediterranean (World Tourism Organisation, 2017). Tourism in Europe reached record-levels over the last decade. It should be noted that tourism activities in the Mediterranean peak during the summer season, similarly to agricultural activities. This results in high levels of seasonal water stress. It is estimated that the annual number of tourists who visit the Mediterranean areas per year is 16 times higher than the permanent population of these areas, while water consumption of tourists is two to three times higher than local demands (Iglesias et al., 2007). In the last decade, the number of nights spent by tourists in Europe increased by 30 % in southern Europe, whereas there was no significant change in other parts of Europe (Eurostat, 2020b). Over the same period water abstraction for tourism almost doubled. The local and national economies of many southern countries (e.g. Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Spain, Turkey) are largely dependent on tourism.