Tourist overnight stays by foreigners plummeted 82% in July

Finnish entrepreneurs in the tourism sector will probably not remember a summer as bad as this for their business. Especially those establishments focused on foreign demand have seen their premises almost empty during the summer period.

According to Statistics Finland, overnight stays by foreign tourists in Finnish accommodation establishments plummeted 82.3% year-on-year in July 2020 due to the drop in travel caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In total, 140,000 overnight stays by foreign visitors were recorded in Finland's quintessential holiday month.

Overnight stays by resident tourists, in turn, declined just by 2.2% compared with the same period the year before. The fall was huge (41.2%) in the Greater Helsinki area, but in the rest of the country overnight stays by Finnish residents increased by 4.3%.

The reasons for this evolution must be found in the fact that many Finns, given the risks and difficulties involved in traveling abroad, chose to spend their holidays in their own country. In other words, many people from Helsinki and surroundings went to the Finnish countryside to spend their holidays.

Swedish tourism down 94.2%

Overnight stays did not increase from any of the most important countries. The smallest drop was seen in overnight stays by Norwegians, down by 2,700 nights. The biggest drop was seen in overnight stays by Swedes, down by 114,500 nights. Their overnight stays were 94.2% down compared with July 2019.

Similarly, the biggest group of non-resident tourists were Norwegians with 34,400 overnight stays. The second largest group was Germans with 18,700 overnight stays. The third largest group was Estonians with 17,000 overnight stays, and fourth were Swedes with 7,000 overnight stays.

Source: Statistics Finland.

January-July

In January to July, a total of 8.68 million nights were spent in Finnish accommodation establishments. This was 37.3% less than in the corresponding period one year earlier. In all, 6.86 million overnight stays were recorded for resident tourists and 1.82 million for non-resident tourists.

The number of nights spent by resident tourists declined by 29.8% and nights spent by non-resident tourists declined by 55.3% from the previous year.

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.