Foreign tourist inflow remains unchanged in November

The number of nights spent by foreign tourists in Finland remained on level with 2017 in November 2018, according to Statistics Finland.

About 435,000 overnight stays were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments, which was only 0.4 per cent more than one year before.

The number of nights spent by resident tourists went up by 2.0 per cent and totalled good one million at accommodation establishments.

A total of nearly 1.5 million overnight stays were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments, which was 1.5 per cent more than in November 2017.

Russia, Sweden and Germany have varied their order in the top monthly in 2018, but have clearly stood out from other countries.

In November, visitors from Great Britain beat the Swedes and came third. Russians were, however, by far the largest group of foreign tourists with 60,500 overnight stays. Their overnight stays at accommodation establishments increased by 1.1 per cent from the year before.

Germans came second and a total of nearly 34,000 overnight stays at Finnish accommodation establishments were recorded for them. The figure was 4.5 per cent higher than one year previously. British and Swedish visitors came next with around 33,000 overnight stays each. Overnight stays of British visitors increased by 13.7 per cent whereas those of Swedish visitors decreased by 5.9 per cent from the previous year.

Finnish accommodation establishments recorded close on 21,000 overnight stays for Chinese visitors and good 18,000 overnight stays for Japanese visitors.

Overnight stays by Chinese tourists increased by as much as 33.0 per cent and those by Japanese visitors by 18.6 per cent from November 2017. In addition to Japanese visitors, visitors from the United States and Estonia reached around 18,000 overnight stays. Overnight stays by visitors from the United States increased by 13.5 per cent, while overnight stays by Estonian visitors decreased by 2.5 per cent compared to November 2017.

The biggest decreases in overnight stays among the most important countries of inbound tourism to Finland came from the Netherlands and Switzerland in November 2018. Overnight stays by visitors from the Netherlands decreased by 14.5 per cent and overnight stays by visitors from Switzerland by 12.3 per cent compared to November of the previous year. Overnight stays recorded for Dutch visitors at accommodation establishments numbered close on 9,000, while overnight stays by Swiss tourists stood at just under 7,000.