HELSINKI: Accommodation establishments in Finland recorded nearly 19.8 million overnight stays, of which domestic tourists accounted for 14.2 million and foreign tourists for 5.5 million in 2015.
The foreign demand for accommodation services declined by 3.5 per cent, while the domestic demand grew by 1.1 per cent compared with the previous year. The total demand for accommodation services declined by only 0.2 per cent in 2015, according to Statistics Finland’s data. The year 2014 already indicated a slight petering out in the demand for accommodation services and in January 2015, the demand decreased further by close on eight per cent.
A slight growth was achieved in February, but during spring, the demand for accommodation services decreased again until July when the demand increased by one per cent. The remainder of the year showed a slight growth, apart from November when the demand decreased by three per cent as per the statistics collected from accommodation establishments with at least 20 beds or caravan pitches with electricity connection.
If the development of overnight stays by foreign visitors is examined excluding the steep decline in overnight stays by Russians, the number of overnight stays by foreign tourists went up by around eight per cent in 2015.
Russians were, however, the largest group of foreign tourists in Finnish accommodation establishments in 2015. Nearly 783,000 overnight stays were recorded for Russians, which was as much as 41.6 per cent down on the year before. In 2015, Russian visitors accounted for 14 per cent of all overnight stays by foreign visitors, having been good 23 per cent twelve months earlier. Swedish, German and British visitors came next.
