Influx of foreign tourists increases by 4.2% in April

Number of overnight stays by foreign tourists at Finnish accommodation establishments grew slightly in April 2018, according to Statistics Finland.

About 372,000 nights spent were recorded for foreign visitors, which was 4.2 per cent more than April 2017.

By contrast, the number of nights spent by resident tourists went down by 1.2 per cent and totalled close on 1.2 million at accommodation establishments.

In total, Finnish accommodation establishments recorded good 1.5 million overnight stays, which was nearly the same as in April 2017, up by just 0.1 per cent. 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 made up the largest group of foreign tourists in April 2018. Finnish accommodation establishments recorded almost 49,000 overnight stays for Russian visitors, which was 12.2 per cent more than one year before.

Swedish tourists came second with some 39,000 recorded over-night stays. However, this was 1.7 per cent fewer than in the year before.

Visitors from Germany came third with nearly 30,500 nights spent, which was 6.3 per cent up year-on-year. British and Norwegian visitors came next.

A total of good 24,000 overnight stays were recorded for British visitors, up by 5.9 per cent from the previous year.

By contrast, overnight stays by Norwegian visitors decreased by 7.0 per cent from last year and almost 19,000 nights were recorded for them.

Among the most important countries of inbound tourism to Finland, overnight stays by visitors from China increased most in April. In all, 13,000 nights spent were recorded for Chinese visi-tors, which was 14.7 per cent more than twelve months earlier. Nearly the same number of over-night stays were recorded for visitors from the US and Estonia, 13,000 to 13,500 nights.

Over-night stays by tourists from the US increased by 7.0 per cent, while those by Estonian tourists decreased by 5.1 per cent from April 2017.

The biggest drops were, however, seen in overnight stays by Japanese and Spanish tourists in April 2018. Compared with April 2017, the number of nights spent by Japanese tourists decreased by 21.3 per cent and that of nights spent by Spanish tourists by 15.2 per cent.