• Trips abroad by residents of Estonia lasted longer in the second quarter of 2018 than a year earlier
• Residents of Estonia spent 10 million euros more on their travels than in the second quarter of 2017
• Foreign tourists spent 5 million euros more in Estonia than a year earlier
• The number of trips to Estonia from Finland was down 3%

The number of foreign visitors to Estonia was about the same in the second quarter of 2018 as in the second quarter of 2017 at around 1.3 million. Visitors spent 415 million euros in Estonia in the quarter, which is 5 million more than in the same three months of the previous year. A third of the visitors were tourists from Finland, of whom there were 20,000 fewer than a year earlier. The number of residents of other European Union countries visiting Estonia was up a little. The numbers of visits from the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and the Czech Republic were up by more than one tenth, while the numbers coming from Belgium and Spain were down by a fifth.

There were 218,000 visits to Estonia by residents of Russia, which is a rise of 4% over the year, but there were fewer visits from Belarus. There were 10% fewer visitors from Asia than a year earlier.

Half of all visitors stayed in Estonia overnight and the average length of overnight stays remained four days.

Estonian residents visited foreign countries around a million times in the second quarter of 2018, which was more or less the same as in the second quarter of last year. Tourists from Estonia spent an estimated 260 million euros abroad, which was 10 million euros more than in the second quarter of 2017.

As usual, residents of Estonia visited Finland the most, making 158,000 visits there, a number that was down 5% over the year. The number of trips to other European Union countries was down by a total of 2%. There were notable rises in the numbers of trips by residents of Estonia to Bulgaria, Croatia and France, but there were notably fewer visits to Belgium, Italy and Denmark.

Although only one visit in five was made to countries outside the European Union, there was a rise of 25,000 or 14% in the number of such visits. There was a rise of one third in the number of visits from Estonia to Turkey and one tenth of visits by residents of Estonia were to countries in the CIS.

The number of overnight visits fell slightly and their average length was 7% longer at 3.8 days than in the same period of 2017.

The movement of travellers has a noticeable effect on the export and import of travel services in the Estonian balance of payments. The balance of payments statistics for 2017 will be published on 8 September 2018.

More detailed information can be found on the Eesti Pank website under International travel statistics. The methodology for collecting International travel statistics was designed by researchers at Eesti Pank and the University of Tartu in partnership with OÜ Positium LBS. The mobile positioning data are collected and processed by OÜ Positium LBS, which gets the data from the telephone network operators in an anonymised form so as to protect fully the privacy of the telephone users. Statistical methods for the use, processing and presentation of the data do not permit identification of any individual telephone or user and comply with the law on personal data protection. A more detailed description of the methodology can be found on the Eesti Pank website under International travel statistics.

Statistical releases are published by Eesti Pank together with statistical data. The release is independent of economic policy releases and is presented separately from them.

The balance of payments statistics for the second quarter of this year will be published on 9 September.

For further information:
Tarass Snitsarenko
Eesti Pank Statistics Department
Telephone: 668 0906