Foreign tourist inflow in August ebbs 2.6%

The number of nights spent by foreign tourists at Finnish accommodation establishments decreased in August 2018, said the Statistics Finland.

About 754,000 nights were recorded at the establishments as spent by foreign visitors, which was 2.6 per cent lower than that in the previous month of August.

In contrast, the number of overnight stays in the month at accommodation establishments by domestic tourists increased by 2.5 per cent year-on-year to almost 1.6 million.

Overall, 2.3 million overnight stays by tourists were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments, posting a 0.8 per cent rise than that in August 2017.

The data have been collected from accommodation establishments with at least 20 beds or caravan pitches with electricity connection.

Finnish accommodation establishments recorded close on 24,000 overnight stays for Estonian tourists, marking a y-o-y rise of 12.4 per cent, and 27,000 overnight stays, spelling a 10.0 per cent y-o-y rise for Spanish visitors, in August last.

The top three source countries continued to go strong; only the order changed. Russians were the largest group of foreign tourists with nearly 91,000 overnight stays. The number was almost the same as one year before, declining by just 0.1 per cent. Germans were the second biggest group with nearly 89,000 overnight stays recorded for them at Finnish accommodation establishments, which, however, was 7.2 per cent lower year-on-year. Swedes comprised the third largest group with close on 75,000 nights spent, posting a 2.6 per cent decline from that in August last year.

Chinese tourists took the fourth place with almost 42,000 overnight stays recorded that means a 1.6 per cent spike from the number of overnight stays by them in August 2017.

Nights spent by visitors from almost all the top source countries decreased in August. The biggest decline came from the Great Britain and the United States. The overnight stays by British visitors dropped by 16.1 per cent and by US visitors by 11.1 per cent year-on-year. Slightly over 34,000 overnight stays were recorded for British visitors and 36,000 for the visitors from the US. Despite the decline, they were still the biggest source countries of tourists after China this August.