In January, the number of tourists fell by more than a half
According to Statistics Estonia, in January, Estonian accommodation establishments served 96,000 tourists who spent 184,000 nights in total. Compared to January 2020, the number of visitors fell by 57%.
Helga Laurmaa, analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that most of the accommodated guests were domestic tourists and just a fifth were foreign tourists. “After several years, Estonia has had plenty of snow this winter, which coaxed people out of their homes. Still, the number of domestic tourists was 9% smaller than in January 2020,” noted Laurmaa.
86,000 domestic tourists stayed at accommodation establishments and spent a total of 148,000 nights. The number of accommodated foreign tourists was 10,000, which is 92% less than in January last year. The largest number of foreign tourists were from the neighbouring countries – 2,000 from Finland and 1,000 from Latvia. Foreign tourists spent a total of 36,000 nights in Estonia, which represents just 14% of the nights spent in January 2020.
Both domestic and foreign tourists preferred the accommodation establishments of Harju county, followed by Pärnu and Tartu counties. According to Helga Laurmaa, the number of accommodated tourists decreased by over 80% in both Harju and Ida-Viru county due to virus-related restrictions and the lack of foreign tourists. “However, in several counties, there were more tourists accommodated than last year. The number of accommodated tourists increased the most in Valga county, and there were also more tourists in Järva, Lääne-Viru and Viljandi counties,” added Laurmaa.
In January, there were 899 accommodation establishments open for tourists in Estonia, with 19,000 rooms available for guests. The average cost of an overnight stay was 30 euros per person, which is eight euros cheaper than in January last year. The average cost of a guest night was 28 euros in Harju county, 36 euros in Tartu county, 32 euros in Pärnu county and 27 euros in Valga county.
Statistics Estonia collects and analyses accommodation data for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications with the aim to determine the economic situation in Estonia.
See also the dedicated section on tourism, accommodation and food service and the tourism industry dashboard.
More detailed data have been published in the statistical database.
For further information:
Kaia-Liisa Tabri
Communications Partner
Marketing and Dissemination Department
Statistics Estonia
Tel +372 507 0521