Summer months of 2023 – June, July, and August – saw Estonia welcome 1.25 million tourists to its accommodation establishments, marking a one per cent uptick from the previous year but revealing a 12 per cent dip from the pre-pandemic summer of 2019, according to a recent report released by Statistics Estonia.
Estonia has one of the Schengen Area’s strictest visa regimes for Russian tourists due to entry bans imposed after the start of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military, preventing hundreds of Russians from entering the country and the bloc, despite Russians being the largest group of tourists in Estonia.
Marking a shift from the previous summer, Estonia, in 2023, hosted a greater number of foreign than domestic tourists.
Helga Laurmaa, the leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that 609,000 foreign tourists were accommodated in Estonia in the three summer months of 2023.
Foreign arrivals did not yet reach the pre-crisis level of June-August 2019, but compared with the summer of 2022, the number of foreign tourists increased by seven per cent.
According to the previous report, domestic tourist numbers declined by four per cent compared to the previous year’s summer months but showed a remarkable 16 per cent increase compared to the period from June to August 2019.
Finnish tourists took the lead during the peak tourism season, making up 43 per cent of foreign visitors, totalling 265,000 in Estonian accommodations. Compared to the pre-pandemic year, the share of Finnish tourists increased, as did the percentages of Latvian and Lithuanian tourists, but the number of Russian tourists declined drastically by 92 per cent compared to 2019.
In August 2023 alone, over 429,000 tourists found lodging in accommodation establishments, representing a modest two per cent increase from the previous year but a notable 11 per cent decrease compared to July 2023.
During this period, there were fewer domestic tourists in accommodation establishments than in the last year, with foreign tourists outnumbering them. Notably, 82 per cent of foreign tourists were on vacation, while 14 per cent were travelling for business purposes, contributing to almost 409,000 nights spent in the country.
Out of the foreign tourists, 69 per cent were accommodated in Harju county, followed by Pärnu at 12 per cent, Tartu at seven per cent, Saare at four per cent, and Ida-Viru and Lääne-Viru counties at two per cent counties.
To compare, during August 2023, 225,000 domestic tourists stayed in accommodations, with 74 per cent on vacation and 14 per cent on business trips.
The top choices among domestic tourists were Harju County at 22 per cent, followed by Pärnu County at 15 per cent, and Ida-Viru County at 10 per cent. The lowest number of domestic visitors was in Lääne-Viru, Saare, and Tartu counties, each hosting 8 per cent. Domestic tourists spent 385,000 nights in these establishments, which is fewer than foreign tourists.
In August 2023, Estonia welcomed visitors in 1,243 accommodation establishments, providing 24,000 rooms and almost 58,000 bed spaces, resulting in a room occupancy rate of 54 per cent.
The average cost of overnight accommodation increased in most counties, with the top destination, Harju, topping the list at 56 euros per person, followed by Pärnu at €48, Saare at €47, Tartu at €42, and the most budget-friendly option being Ida-Viru at €41.
