The Number of overnight stays by foreign tourists at Finnish accommodation establishments continued growing in March 2018, according to Statistics Finland.

About 574,000 nights spent were recorded for them, which was 7.7 per cent more than twelve months earlier.

The number of nights spent by resident tourists went up by 3.8 per cent and totalled 1.3 million at accommodation establishments.

In all, slightly under 1.9 million overnight stays were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments, which was 5.0 per cent more than in March 2017.

The regions of Uusimaa and Lapland both recorded around 210,000 overnight stays by foreign tourists in March, while a total of good 574,000 overnight stays were recorded in the whole country.

In Uusimaa, overnight stays by foreign visitors increased by 5.5 per cent and in Lapland by 16 per cent.

The biggest groups of foreign tourists in Uusimaa were Russians and Germans, while Lapland was clearly popular for French tourists. German, Dutch and British tourists also favoured Lapland.

Overnight stays by Dutch tourists increased in Lapland by 46.6 per cent and those by French and German tourists by 19 to 21 per cent.

Overnight stays by Japanese visitors focused almost completely on Uusimaa and Lapland. Their overnight stays, however, decreased strongly in March. In Uusimaa the number of recorded overnight stays by Japanese fell by as much as 51 per cent, and in Lapland by around 10 per cent. On the level of the whole country, overnight stays by Japanese tourists decreased by 39.1 per cent, while good 14,000 overnight stays were recorded for them. Uusimaa and Lapland accounted for 73 per cent of all nights spent by foreign visitors.

Russians made up the largest group of foreign tourists in March 2018. Good 66,000 overnight stays were recorded for them at accommodation establishments, which was 22.8 per cent more than one year before.

German tourists came second with almost 57,000 recorded overnight stays. The growth from the year before amounted to 11.3 per cent. French and British visitors came next. Slightly under 43,000 overnight stays were recorded for French visitors at accommodation establishments, which was 16.5 per cent more than one year before. Overnight stays by British visitors increased by 5.6 per cent from last year and totalled around 36,500.

Overnight stays by Dutch tourists increased by as much as 36.2 per and good 33,000 were recorded for them in March, which took them past Swedes to the fifth place. Swedes had nearly the same number of overnight stays as Dutch visitors, but their number fell by 15.6 per cent from last year.