Foreign tourist inflow drops by 2.2% in July

Despite big international events, overnight stays by foreign tourists decreased in Finnish accommodation establishments in July, according to Statistics Finland.

A total of 798,000 nights spent were recorded for foreign visitors, which was 2.2 per cent lower than July 2017.

The number of nights spent by domestic tourists at accommodation establishments went down by one per cent and totalled at almost 2.3 million. In all, around 3.1 million overnight stays were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments, which was 1.3 per cent lower than in July 2017.

Finnish accommodation establishments recorded 40,000 overnight stays for tourists from the United States and around 18,000 for Spanish visitors in July 2018. The number of nights spent by tourists from the United States increased by 10.9 per cent and those by Spanish tourists by 11.6 per cent from July last year.

Swedes were the largest group of foreign tourists with good 114,000 overnight stays, although their overnight stays went down by 9.0 per cent from last year. Germans were the second biggest group and nearly 95,000 overnight stays were recorded for them at Finnish accommodation establishments, down by just 0.1 per cent from last year’s July. Russians were third with close on 86,000 nights spent. The number of their overnight stays was 4.0 per cent lower than in July 2017. The above-mentioned visitors from the United States retained their fourth place with 40,000 overnight stays.

Nights spent by visitors from almost all the most important countries of inbound tourism to Finland decreased in July. The Asian countries accounted for the biggest decreases in overnight stays. Overnight stays by Japanese visitors decreased by 11.9 per cent and those by Chinese visitors by 10.8 per cent compared to the previous year. By contrast, tourism increased only for French and Italian tourists. Overnight stays by French visitors increased by 6.2 per cent and those by Italians by 1.7 per cent.