New figures from the accommodation statistics show that there were 1.9 million guest nights at Norwegian hotels in October this year. There were nearly 1.6 million Norwegian guest nights, a decrease of 2.6 per cent compared to last October. In contrast, the number of foreign guest nights surged by over 24 per cent.
– The rise in foreign hotel guest nights may be linked to a record weak krone, making Norway more appealing for international tourists, says advisor Boyd Oyier in SSB.
When adding overnight stays at camping sites, holiday dwellings and youth hostels, the total number of guest nights at commercial accommodation establishments was almost 2.4 million – representing a 0.4 per cent increase compared with last October. Of these, about 1.9 million were Norwegian guest nights and 502 000 were by foreign guests.
Hotel guest nights for courses and conferences saw a decline of 4.3 per cent compared to October 2022. Oslo experienced the most significant decrease in the number of guest nights with purpose course and conference, with a drop of over 14 per cent from last October.
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.