Finns Are Spending Increasingly Shorter Periods of Time in Estonia

Text Susanna Poikela
Photo Toolbox Estonia / Ken Oja

The Bank of Estonia, Eesti Pank, has published its tourism statistics for the third quarter. The share of Finnish visitors fell below 40% to 35%. Latvians visited Estonia a record number of times—a total of 211,000 trips.

According to the statistics, 550,000 Finns travelled to Estonia in July–September, a decrease of 3.5% (about 20,000) compared to the previous year. One-day trips increased by roughly five thousand people. This means that around 25,000 Finns who would normally have stayed overnight did not come. Since the average length of stay also declined, the total number of multi-day overnight stays fell by 112,000 days over the three-month period compared to the previous year. Put simply: every day between July and September this year, 1200 fewer Finns spent the night in Estonia than the year before.

Because Finns are now staying more often in accommodation outside officially recorded hotels, hotels have lost customers for that reason as well. For example, in August the number of Finns staying in hotels fell by 9%, totalling 62,400.

According to the central bank’s statistics, during the first nine months of this year Finnish trips decreased by 1.5%, and Finns spent 195,000 fewer nights in Estonia compared to last year. The number of visitors who stayed overnight decreased by 27,000. One-day trips increased by 6000 people.

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