Tourism to Finland continues at record pace

The record year for tourism to Finland picked up right where the previous one left off, when Finland celebrated its centenary of independence and overnight visits to the country grew by almost one million.

“Finland’s tourism industry has been able to maintain – and also grow – the anniversary year’s increased tourism demand, which shows that the achieved growth is structural,” said Paavo Virkkunen, head of Visit Finland. “The credit for this belongs to tourism companies across the country, which have taken a strong growth-oriented role in international markets.”

Neighbourly visits

Europe remains Finland’s strongest tourism market with 53 per cent of last year’s overnight visitors arriving from within the EU, according to Statistics Finland. The share of visits from the fast-growing Asian market stood at 16 per cent.

The top five nationalities visiting Finland remained the same: Russia (816 000 overnights), Germany (628 000) Britain (595 000), Sweden (560 000) and China (385 000).

The Finnish winter holiday season was especially attractive to international tourists, as shown by the 6.8 per cent year-on-year increase recorded in December 2018. Finnish Lapland attracted half of these tourists, after a rise of 7.8 per cent from 2017, with Britons leading the way clearly with around 171 000 overnights.

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is published by Finnfacts. Both Finnfacts and Visit Finland are part of Business Finland.