Foreign tourists disregarded the rainy summer

According to Statistics Estonia, during the three summer months more than a half million foreign tourists stayed in accommodation establishments, i.e. 5% more than in the same period of the previous year.

During the high season of tourism or the three summer months, 572,000 foreign tourists used the services of accommodation establishments of Estonia. The number of foreign tourists increased every month of this period compared to the same month of the previous year. The share of foreign tourists was continually about two thirds of the total number of accommodated tourists. The majority of foreign tourists (80%) arrived in Estonia for a holiday trip and only 13% were on business trip. As usual, the most of foreign tourists stayed in accommodation establishments of Tallinn. 64% of foreign tourists used the services of accommodation establishments of the capital city and the share of Tallinn increased two percentage points compared to the three summer months of the previous year.

Estonian residents used the services of accommodation establishments less than in the summer a year ago. 339,000 Estonian residents or 16,000 tourists less stayed in accommodation establishments of Estonia compared to the same period of the previous year. 64% of accommodated domestic tourists were on holiday trip and a fifth on business trip. Although accommodation establishments offer different possibilities to spend interesting and healthy holidays, the organisation of the domestic overnight trip depends on the weather and on economic possibilities.

In August 940 accommodation establishments offered accommodation services for tourists. 19,500 rooms and 44,300 beds were available for tourists. Characteristically of August, the room occupancy rate was big — 51%, but it was still three percentage points smaller than in August of the previous year.

The average cost of a guest night in an accommodation establishment was 473 kroons, which was by 8 kroons more expensive compared to August 2007.

Accommodation by regions, August 2008

Accommodation	Total	Northern Estonia	North-eastern Estonia	Central Estonia	Western Estonia	Southern Estonia
Accommodation establishments	940	177	65	73	358	267
Rooms	19 525	8 012	1 556	978	5 494	3 485
Beds	44 343	16 426	3 455	2 357	13 387	8 718
Room occupancy rate, %	51	61	36	38	47	47
Bed occupancy rate, %	43	53	29	35	38	40
Tourists accommodated	304 237	146 509	14 816	15 588	71 184	56 140
Nights spent	588 013	268 919	30 783	25 334	155 857	107 120
residents of Estonia	209 050	39 338	21 136	19 269	58 599	70 708
foreign visitors	378 963	229 581	9 647	6 065	97 258	36 412
Average cost of a guest night, kroons	473	567	409	300	446	335

For further information:

Helga Laurmaa
Leading Statistician
Services Statistics Service
Statistics Estonia
Tel +372 625 9261

More detailed data have been published in the Statistical Database