Tourist influx increases accommodation demand by 1.5%

The demand for accommodation services grew by 1.5 per cent in the country following increase of the number of tourists in 2018, according to Statistics Finland.

In 2018, accommodation establishments in Finland recorded more than 22 million overnight stays, of which domestic tourists accounted for around 15.4 million and foreign tourists for good 6.8 million.

The demand for accommodation services turned to growth starting from 2016 and still grew strongly in 2017.

Last year, the growth in demand for accommodation services continued moderately in every month of 2018 except for July and September, when demand went down by one per cent in both.

The biggest growth percentages came in the early part of the year, when demand grew in January to February by around four per cent in both and in March, when the growth was five per cent compared to 2017.

In October and December the growth was approximately three per cent and in November around two per cent.

In other months demand for accommodation services grew by one per cent or remained on level with 2017.

Russians were still the largest group of foreign tourists in Finnish accommodation establishments in 2018.

A total of 826,000 overnight stays were recorded for them, which was nearly one per cent more than in the year before. The share of Russians among all overnight stays by foreign tourists remained at 12 per cent in 2018 just like in 2017.

Germans came second with good 628,000 overnight stays. Their overnight stays increased by 0.9 per cent year-on-year. British tourists rose to the third biggest group surpassing Swedes with their 593,000 overnight stays.

The number was 1.2 per cent higher than in 2017. British visitors were followed by Swedes whose number of overnight stays at accommodation establishments was 560,000. However, overnight stays by Swedish tourists decreased by 6.2 per cent compared with 2017.

Nearly 333,000 overnight stays were recorded for Chinese tourists, which made them the fifth largest group after Swedes. Overnight stays recorded for French visitors increased by 6.9 per cent and totalled good 299,000 at accommodation establishments.

Among the most important countries of inbound tourism to Finland, the biggest growth percentages came from the United States, the Netherlands and Spain. Visitors from the United States spent 7.5 per cent more nights in Finland and their overnight stays amounted to almost 289,000.

Overnight stays by Dutch tourists increased by 8.4 per cent and they amounted to good 246,000. The number of overnight stays by Spanish visitors was 8.3 per cent up on the previous year, but their stays remained at 176,000 nights. Estonian tourists reached nearly 222,000 overnight stays and Japanese visitors slightly under 216,000. Overnight stays by tourists from Estonia increased by 1.3 per cent while those by Japanese tourists decreased by 9.5 per cent.

Examined by continent, Asia exceeded the one million mark for overnight stays for the first time in 2017. Last year did not differ from the previous year, because Finnish accommodation establishments recorded slightly under 1.1 million overnight stays for Asians. Overnight stays by Chinese and Japanese visitors covered 51 per cent of all overnightings of the whole Asia. Overnight stays by Japanese tourists diminished throughout last year, which partly had an effect on that overnight stays by visitors from Asian countries went up by just 1.7 per cent in 2018.

Nearly 878,000 overnight stays were recorded for the Nordic countries, which was 5.6 per cent down on the year before. Examined by continent, the biggest growth percentage came from Oceania, 13.0 per cent and good 100,000 overnight stays. In all, 0.8 per cent more overnight stays were recorded for visitors from EU countries than in 2017, the number of nights rising to 3.6 million. Tourism from America increased by 6.0 per cent and overnight stays amounted to good 401,000. Overnight stays recorded for African visitors numbered nearly 31,000 in 2018, which was 9.1 per cent more than in 2017.

In 2018, the statistics covered a total of 1,372 accommodation establishments: 675 hotels, 113 guest houses, 316 holiday villages, 219 camping sites and 49 hostels. Holiday villages of hotel calibre are included in hotels.

The accommodation establishments had in total 69,671 rooms (or cottages) with a total of 172,668 beds. In addition to the room and bed capacity, the accommodation establishments had 19,886 caravan pitches with electricity connection, 15,299 of which were located at camping sites.

When the capacity of accommodation establishments is viewed according to the number of rooms, the statistics contained 985 establishments with fewer than 50 rooms and 387 establishments with at least 50 rooms in 2018. Measured by bed capacity, there were 906 establishments with fewer than one hundred beds and 466 establishments with at least one hundred beds.

In 2018, there were 1,103 accommodation establishments that were open year round and 269 establishments that were open part of the year; these were mostly camping sites and holiday villages.