Foreign tourist inflow increases by 12% in October

Overnight stays by resident tourists at Finnish accommodation establishments increased by 5.6 percent from last year and 1.24 million nights were recorded for them in October 2019.

Overnight stays by foreign tourists increased by 12.2 percent and 0.43 million overnight stays were recorded for non-resident tourists. Finnish accommodation establishments recorded a total of 1.67 million overnight stays, which was 7.2 percent more than one year before.

These figures are preliminary data from Statistics Finland’s statistics on accommodation establishments and they have been collected from accommodation establishments with at least 20 beds or caravan pitches with electricity connection.

Examined by region, overnight stays increased most in relative terms in Southwest Finland, by 21.4 percent, and second most in South Karelia, by 13.3 percent. By contrast, the overall number of overnight stays declined most in relative terms in Central Ostrobothnia, by 16.1 percent and second most in Åland, by 14.2 percent.

Accommodation establishments in Uusimaa recorded 259,000 overnight stays by non-resident tourists and accommodation establishments in Lapland 35,000. Overnight stays by non-resident tourists increased by 13.5 percent in Uusimaa. In Lapland, overnight stays by non-resident tourists increased by 2.6 percent from one year ago. The share of Uusimaa in all overnight stays by foreign visitors was 60 percent and that of Lapland 8 percent.

The total number of nights spent in hotels was 1.46 million, which was 7.8 percent more than twelve months earlier. Overnight stays by foreign tourists increased by 12,1 percent and hotels recorded a total of 388,000 overnight stays for them. Recorded nights spent by resident tourists in hotels numbered 1.07 million. The number was 6,3 percent higher than in October 2018.

Among the regions, the highest occupancy rates of hotel rooms were measured in Uusimaa, 71,1 percent, and in Southwest Finland, 67,3 percent. In Helsinki, the hotel room occupancy rate was 77,7 percent, 72,3 percent in Tampere, 76,5 percent in Turku, 73,7 percent in Oulu and 45,1 percent in Rovaniemi.

In October 2019, the realised average price of a hotel room was EUR 108.91 per day for the whole country. Twelve months earlier, it was EUR 99.62. There was a total of 53,546 hotel rooms available in Finland, which was 963 more than in October 2018.

In January to October 2019, a total of 19.75 million nights were spent in Finnish accommodation establishments. This was 4.0 percent more than in the corresponding period one year earlier. In all, 13.95 million overnight stays were recorded for resident tourists and 5.8 million for non-resident tourists. The number of nights spent by resident tourists increased by 4.3 percent and the number of nights spent by non-resident tourists increased by 3.3 percent from the previous year.

Among the most important countries of inbound tourism to Finland, overnight stays by Chinese increased most in absolute numbers, by 42,600 nights. This was 15.2 percent higher than in the year before. The biggest drop was seen in overnight stays by Russians ,down by 7,600 nights. Their overnight stays were 1.1 percent down on January to October 2018.

The biggest group of non-resident tourists were Russians with 682,000 overnight stays. The second largest group was Germans with 580,000 overnight stays. The third largest group was Swedes with 502,000 overnight stays , and fourth were Britons with 349,000 overnight stays. The fifth largest group was Chinese (322,000 nights), sixth was French (280,000 nights), seventh U.S. tourists (269,000 nights) and eight was Dutch (229,000 nights).