Arrival of foreign tourists’ ups by 15% in Nov

Nights spent by foreign tourists at Finnish accommodation establishments continued to grow, by 14.9 per cent from last year and good 418,000 nights were recorded for them in November 2017, according to Statistics Finland.

The number of nights spent by resident tourists went up by 4.0 per cent and totalled 998,500. Slightly over one 1.4 million overnight stays were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments in November 2017, which was 7.0 per cent more than in November 2016.

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.

Russians were the largest foreign group of visitors in last year’s October and they also retained their first position in November with nearly 59,000 overnight stays. Overnight stays by Russian visitors increased by 9.8 per cent from the previous year.

Swedes came second and nearly 35,000 nights were recorded for them at Finnish accommodation establishments, which was 3.2 per cent more than one year earlier. Germans were third with 31,600 nights spent. Their number of overnight stays increased by 9.3 per cent. British tourists came fourth with nearly 30,000 recorded overnight stays, up by 25.9 per cent from November 2016.

Over 16,000 overnight stays were recorded for visitors from Estonia, Norway and the United States. Nights spent by Norwegians increased by 12.3 per cent and overnight stays by visitors from the U.S. went up by 8.9 per cent from November 2016.

The growth in overnight stays by Estonians was 3.9 per cent. However, the largest growth percentage for overnight stays came from overnight stays by Chinese visitors. Accommodation establishments recorded 15,500 overnight stays for them, which was as much as 45.6 per cent more than one year before. Overnight stays by visitors from Spain and Italy also showed a strong increase. Overnight stays by Spanish tourists increased by 30.7 per cent and those by Italians by 28.2 per cent from November 2016. The overnight stays of Italians totalled good 11,000 and those of Spanish tourists over 8,000. The growth in overnight stays is partly explained by the big international Slush startup event arranged in Helsinki.