Foreign tourist inflow slides by 0.7% in March

The overnight stays by foreign tourists decreased by 0.7 per cent at Finnish accommodation establishments from last year and around 570,000 nights were recorded for them in March 2019, according to Statistics Finland.

Meanwhile, the overnight stays by resident tourists decreased by 1.4 per cent and accommodation establishments recorded good 1.3 million of them.

Nearly 1.9 million overnight stays were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments in March 2019, which was 1.4 per cent less than one year earlier.

The biggest growth percentages came from overnight stays by tourists from the United States and Japan in March 2019.

Around 22,000 overnight stays were recorded for visitors from the United States, which was 23.2 per cent more than in March 2018. Overnight stays by Japanese tourists increased by 13.6 per cent, and their number of overnight stays was around 16,000 nights.

Russians and Germans were the biggest group of foreign tourists on the level of the whole country in March

In March 2019, the highest number of overnight stays were recorded for Russians nearly 64,000. Overnight stays by Russians have, however, been falling since December 2018 and they went down by 6.1 per cent in March 2019.

The number of overnight stays by Germans was nearly 57,500 and they increased by 1.1 per cent year-on-year.

French visitors came third with close on 44,500 overnight stays, up by four per cent from the previous year.

British and Dutch visitors were almost even: around 36,000 overnight stays were recorded for both. However, overnight stays by British tourists went down by 4.9 per cent while those by Dutch visitors increased by eight per cent from the previous year. Swedes became sixth and the above-mentioned visitors from the United States and China were almost neck and neck in positions 7 and 8.

In addition to Russians, the biggest decreases were in overnight stays of Spanish visitors in March. The number of overnight stays by Spanish visitors remained at good 13,000, which was nearly one quarter lower than in the year before.