Tourism rose by 64% YoY in January, state agency Statistics Estonia reports. Tourist numbers rose both for foreign tourists, exiting the Covid pandemic, and domestic travelers, with Latvia providing more visitors than any other country.
Over 158,000 tourists stayed in hotels, hostels, guest houses and other accommodation establishments in January, the agency reported.
While the number of foreign tourists rose more than four-fold, by 412%, compared with January 2021, this was the result of recovery from the pandemic period, when there was virtually no foreign tourism, and remained a half of the pre-pandemic figure.
Helga Laurmaa, Statistics Estonia analyst, said: “The number of accommodated foreign tourists was comparable to January eighteen years ago.”
“The number of domestic tourists grew by 22% YoY, and was also 10% higher than in January 2019,” he added.
Over 53,000 foreign tourists and more than 104,000 domestic tourists were accommodated in Estonia in January, Laurmaa added.
Compared with January 2021, there was an increase in the number of tourists from European countries, as well as from countries outside of Europe.
One of the reasons for the big change was the very low reference base noted above.
The largest proportion of tourists came from Estonia’s neighbor to the south, Latvia, with 11,000 visitors, while the other significant countries of origin were nearby states also.
Over 9,000 foreign tourists came from Finland, 8,000 from Russia, 2,000 tourists from Lithuania and 2,000 tourists from Germany.
Just over two-thirds of the foreign visitors stayed in Harju County, the most populous region of Estonia, which includes Tallinn, while Parnu County hosted 12% of the total, Tarty County 7% and Ida-Viru County 4%.
Foreign tourists spent a total of 115,000 nights in Estonia, Statistics Estonia said.
By reason for travel, nearly three-quarters of domestic tourists (71%) were vacationing in their own country, with most of the remainder (21%) on business trips.
As with foreign tourists, domestic tourists stayed most in Harju (21% of the total), Parnu (17%), Tartu (12%) and Ida-Viru (11%) counties, while Saaremaa was also a significant destination, hosting 8% of the total in January.
Domestic tourists spent a total of 179,000 nights in accommodation establishments.
A total of 910 accommodation businesses were open in January, a slight rise (of 11%) on January 2021.
20,000 rooms and 45,000 bed spaces were available.
Room occupancy stood at 29%.
The average cost of a guest night was EUR 36 per person, up by EUR 6 YoY, though a euro cheaper than the last pre-pandemic January 2019.
Tartu County was the most expensive on average per person per overnight stay, at EUR 44, followed by Laane-Viru County at EUR 41, Harju County (including Tallinn) at EUR 38 and Parnu County EUR 30 per night. (ERR/Business World Magazine)