Accommodation demand grows by 3.9% last year

The accommodation establishments in Finland recorded over 23 million overnight stays in 2019, of which domestic tourists accounted for around 16 million and foreign tourists for 7.1 million, according to Statistics Finland.

The foreign demand for accommodation services grew by 3.1 per cent and the domestic demand grew by 4.2 per cent compared with the previous year.

The total demand for accommodation services grew in total by 3.9 per cent in 2019.

In 2018, the demand for accommodation services grew moderately after the strong growth in 2017. Also in 2019, there was growth every month except for March.

Russians were still the largest group of foreign tourists in Finnish accommodation establishments in 2019.

A total of 821,000 overnight stays were recorded for them, which was nearly one per cent down on the year before.

The share of Russians among all overnight stays by foreign tourists remained at 12 per cent in 2019 just like in 2018.

Germans came second with good 662,000 overnight stays. Their overnight stays increased by 5.3 per cent year-on-year. Third most overnight stays were recorded for British tourists, 569,000. The number was four per cent lower than in 2018. British visitors were followed by Swedes whose number of overnight stays at accommodation establishments was 558,000. However, overnight stays by Swedish tourists decreased by 0.3 per cent compared with 2018.

Nearly 384,000 overnight stays were recorded for Chinese tourists, which made them the fifth largest group.

Overnight stays recorded for French visitors increased by 14.1 per cent and totalled good 342,000 at accommodation establishments. Among the most important countries of inbound tourism to Finland, the biggest growth percentages came from China, France and Italy.

Overnight stays by Chinese tourists grew by 15.6 per cent. Overnight stays by French tourists increased by 14.1 per cent and they amounted to good 342,000. The number of overnight stays by Italian visitors was 12.6 per cent up on the previous year, but their stays remained at around 180,000 nights.

Finnish accommodation establishments recorded altogether good 1.2 million overnight stays for Asians in 2019. Overnight stays by Chinese and Japanese visitors covered 50.3 per cent of all overnight stays of the whole of Asia.

Nearly 883,000 overnight stays were recorded for the Nordic countries, which was 0.6 per cent up on the year before. Examined by continent, the biggest growth percentage came from Asia, 13.5 per cent. In all, 6.0 per cent more overnight stays were recorded for visitors from EU countries than in 2018, the number of nights rising to 3.2 million. Tourism from America increased by 8.9 per cent and overnight stays amounted to good 437,000. Overnight stays recorded for African visitors numbered nearly 30,000 in 2019, which was 3.3 per cent down from 2018.