New figures from the accommodation statistics show that there were around 4.5 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 June 2022. This is almost 1.8 million more guest nights than in June last year, an increase of 64 per cent. There were 1.3 million more foreign guest nights, just 7.2 per cent lower than in 2019.

Foreign guest nights at camping sites, All types of establishments with a rental unit (apartments, huts etc.) with self-catering and limited service. Stays are short-term. were higher compared to June 2019. Foreign guest nights at hotels, however, remained lower compared to the pre-pandemic period.

According to 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., guest nights at hotels, camping sites and holiday dwellings were unchanged from May to June 2022. Foreign guest nights increased by 1.5 per cent while Norwegian guest nights were at about the same level as in the previous month. Foreign guest nights were low throughout the pandemic, but domestic guest nights have varied more, peaking in the summer months when more Norwegians spent their holidays within the country. Seasonally adjusted Norwegian guest nights in June 2022 were at a higher level than before the pandemic.

Figure 1. Guest nights. Seasonally adjusted by country of residence, January 2019-June 2022

Fewer foreign guest nights at hotels than before the pandemic

Guest nights at hotels contributed the most to the high number of guest nights in June. Norwegians accounted for 1.9 million guest nights at hotels. This was a record for the month of June. Foreigners registered 706 000 guest nights. Both Norwegian and foreign guest nights increased by over 600 000 from June last year.

– The number of foreign hotel guest nights is still lower than before the pandemic. Guest nights from Asia, especially, are still low. China, Japan and South Korea had altogether 110 000 fewer guest nights compared to June 2019, says Higher Executive Officer Boyd Oyier in Statistics Norway.

The number of foreign guest nights at hotels in June 2022 were about three quarters of what they were before the pandemic. USA, Germany, China and Sweden had the highest number of foreign guest nights in 2019. Germany and Sweden returned to their 2019 levels. The largest declines since 2019 were from China, USA and South Korea.

Foreign guests back at camping sites and holiday dwellings

There were almost 1.5 million guest nights at Norwegian camping sites in June. This was a 32 per cent increase from June last year. 531 000 of these were foreign guest nights. This represented 514 000 more foreign guest nights than in June 2021 and 93 000 more than in 2019. Norwegian guest nights on the other hand decreased by 162 000 compared to last year.

– Foreign guests have returned to camping in Norway. Several camping sites reported especially large increases from Germany and the Netherlands, says Boyd Oyier.

Figure 2. Guest nights by type. Change in per cent compared to the same month the year before

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 at are included in the statistics for June. For accommodation establishments that have more than 25 guest nights from Ukraine during June, 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