New figures from the accommodation statistics show that there were approximately 1.5 million Norwegian guest nights and 577 000 foreign guest nights at hotels, short-term holiday dwellings, camping sites and youth hostels in February. An increase by 17 and 24 per cent respectively.

–The hotels in the big cities contributed the most to the increase. 1 in 5 hotel guest nights were in Oslo, and another fifth was in the tourism regions Bergensregion, Trondheim and Romerike, says senior adviser Kristin Aasestad from Statistics Norway.

A tourism region is a regional classification for a level between county and municipality.

The largest increases were in Oslo, where foreign guest nights in hotels more than doubled from February last year, while Norwegian ones increased by 64,000, which corresponds to a 36 per cent increase. In Romerike, there were a total of 35,000 more guest nights in hotels. The Bergen region and Trondheim had around 30,000 more guest nights.

–Admittedly, we are comparing with a month marked by pandemic restrictions. The last restrictions were lifted in mid-February last year, and the hotels that were closed last year have been operating this year, says Kristin Aasestad.

Compared to February 2020, there were 5.9 per cent fewer Norwegian hotel nights, while there were 13 per cent fewer foreign hotel nights.

Figure 1. Hotel guest nights. The 10 tourism regions with most guest nights in February 2023

The Danes rented private holiday homes at ski resorts

Statistics Norway publish figures on guest nights in private holiday homes rented out by Figures include only guest nights booked through Norwegian intermediaries. Guest nights booked via international platforms like Airbnb are not included here.. Private holiday homes are primarily built to serve the owner's own needs for leisure and recreation, in contrast to cabins that are built for commercial purposes.

In February 2023, 240,000 such overnight stays were arranged. This is an increase of 54 percent from the same month last year. More than 80 per cent of these overnight stays were made by foreign guests, and of the foreign overnight stays, two out of three were Danish.

Figure 2. Guest nights through Norwegian intermediaries of holiday homes by country of residence. February 2023

Small decrease in guest nights at camping sites

  • 153 000 guest nights at camping sites in February 2023
  • 1.2 per cent decrease compared to February 2022
  • Norwegian guest nights decreased by 0.8 per cent
  • Foreign guest nights decreased by 3.3 per cent

Guest nights at holiday dwellings and youth hostels

  • 273 000 guest nights at holiday dwellings and youth hostels
  • Norwegian guest nights decreased by 2.4 per cent
  • Foreign guest nights decreased by 6.5 per cent

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.