New figures from the accommodation statistics show that there were almost 2.4 million Notice the difference between “guest nights” and “guest”. One guest may have several guest nights at The numbers refer to hotels, short-term holiday dwellings, camping sites, and youth hostels in October 2022. This is a derease of 0.5 percent since October last year. There were 1.9 million Norwegian guest nights, a decrease of 5.6 percent from last year, and 409 000 foreign guest nights, an increase of 33 percent.
– There was a record number of Norwegian guest nights in October 2021 following the lifting of travel restrictions in September last year. This year we had more opportunities to travel abroad, leading to a slight decrease in Norwegian guest nights, says senior adviser Kristin Aasestad in Statistics Norway.
8 out of 10 guest nights in October this year were at hotels. Compared to last year Norwegian guest nights at hotels decreased by 5.7 percent while foreign guest nights at hotels increased by 41 percent.
More Norwegian guest nights at hotels than in 2019
Compared to October 2019, there were 66 000 more Norwegian guest nights at hotels, an increase of 4.3 percent.
- Norwegian guest nights at hotels are back to pre-pandemic levels. Every month, since the reopening earlier this year, there have been more Norwegian guest nights compared to the corresponding month in 2019, says Kristin Aasestad.
Despite the strong numbers for Norwegian guest nights, foreign guest nights at hotels are not back to pre-pandemic levels. 1 in 5 foreign guest nights are still absent. The largest part of the decline in foreign guest nights are guests from Asia.
Autumn is typically a high season for events and conferences at hotels. There were 294 000 guest nights with course or conference as the purpose for travel, an increase of 4.0 percent compared to October 2019. Hotel guest nights with holiday or recreation as the purpose increased by 11 percent and guest nights with occupation as the purpose decreased by 13 percent.
Regional differences
Hotel guest nights in most counties had small changes compared to October 2019. The increase was largest in Agder, with 22 percent, followed by Innlandet and Vestfold and Telemark. On the other end of the scale, guest nights in Oslo fell for both Norwegian and foreign guest nights compared to October three years ago.
Small decrease at camping sites and holiday dwellings
There were 220 000 guest nights at Norwegian camping sites in October 2022. This represented a 1.1 percent decrease from October last year. Norwegian guest nights decreased by 3.5 percent while foreign guest nights increased by 18 percent.
Guest nights at All types of establishments with a rental unit (apartments, huts etc.) with self-catering and limited service. Stays are short-term decreased by 2.1 percent compared with October last year.
Seasonally adjusted figures for accommodation statistics were first introduced with the publication of the January 2022 statistics. Monthly time series are often characterized by considerable seasonal variations, which might complicate their interpretation. Seasonal adjustment removes the effects of these fluctuations, giving a clearer picture of the time series
In accordance with definitions from Eurostat, refugees should be excluded from tourism statistics and not be considered as guests in the context of tourism statistics when they stay at a tourist accommodation establishment. Refugees from Ukraine cannot be assigned by purpose as holiday, occupation or course, conference. It was not possible to extract all refugees guest nights and some stays are included in the statistics. For accommodation establishments that have more than 25 guest nights from Ukraine during the month, the guest nights have been removed from the statistic. Establishments that are exclusively hosting refugees are not included in the statistics.