New figures from the accommodation statistics show that there were around 5.2 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 August this year. This is an increase of 18 percent since August last year.

More foreign guest nights at hotels

Increase in foreign guest nights at hotels contributed most to the increase in total number of overnight stays from August last year. Foreign guest nights at hotels increased by 190 per cent. Norwegian guest nights at hotels were about the same.

Compared to August 2019, the number of Norwegian hotel guest nights increased by 109 000, foreign guest nights were 18 per cent lower. Guest nights from Asia are still low. China, Japan and South Korea had altogether 90 per cent fewer guest nights at hotels compared to August 2019.

Figure 1. Overnight stays at hotels. August 2016-2022

Higher revenue at hotels

Are the sales figure for the accommodation activity, not including any breakfast or other extra services, even though they might be included in the price of the stay. Sales are published without any VAT at Norwegian hotels has fluctuated throughout the pandemic. Compared to August 2019, the revenue has increased by 25 per cent. At the same time, the number of guest nights has decreased somewhat compared to August 2019. In August 2019, the average price per room was NOK 1 008, while in August this year it had increased to NOK 1 275.

Adjusted for The number of overnight stays varies during the year and the pattern is repeated every year. Seasonal adjustment is used to remove what we call seasonal variations, such as public holidays from monthly time series. The adjustment removes the effects of these fluctuations, giving a clearer picture of the time series, the revenue at hotels since April this year has been higher than before the pandemic.

Figur 2. Seasonally adjusted revenue at hotels. August 2017 - August 2022¹

¹March 2020 and following months are defined as extreme values in the seasonal adjustment routine. Smoothed adjusted values have therefeore been excluded from March 2020 to March 2022

More foreign guests at camping sites

There were almost 1.7 million guest nights at Norwegian camping sites in August. This was a 2.8 per cent increase from August last year. Foreign guest nights increased by 337 0000. Norwegian guest nights on the other hand decreased by 292 000 compared to last year. One out of four foreign guest nights at camping sites were in Vestland county.

Figure 3. Guest nights at camping sites by county and country of residence. August 2022

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.

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