Figures from the accommodation statistics show that there were approximately 2.8 million notice the difference between “guest nights” and “guest”. One guest may have several guest nights. at Norwegian the numbers refer to hotels, short-term holiday dwellings, camping sites, and youth hostels. in June 2021, an 18 per cent increase compared to June last year. However, compared to the same period before the pandemic, June 2019, this represented a 35 per cent decline, where the foreign guest nights fell by 91 per cent. The Norwegian guest nights declined only 3.4 per cent, and have only twice before been as high in June.

Figure 1. Guest nights at commercial establishments in June

Source: Accommodation, Statistics Norway.

May record for Norwegians at camping sites

For the second time since Statistics Norway started counting guest nights at camping sites, domestic guest nights broke the 1 million barrier for the month of June. Camping sites have been quite popular during the pandemic, but even though it was popular during June last year as well, guest nights rose by more than 100 000.

Increase at hotels, but still less than half the normal

There were approximately 1.2 million guest nights at Norwegian hotels in June 2021. This represents 234 000 more guest nights compared to June last year, but still less than half the number of guest nights than in June 2019. In Oslo and at Svalbard, 7 of 10 guest nights had disappeared since 2019, while Agder has suffered less compared to June 2019, with a decrease of around 5 per cent.

In order to limit import infection, the Government introduced a quarantine hotel scheme on 5 November 2020. Guidelines have changed several times. In May, all persons arriving in Norway had to undergo 10-day quarantine but there were changes to which groups were exempt and to the length of stay at quarantine hotels. For more information, see the governments’ webpage.

In accordance with Eurostat, quarantine hotels are not included in the accommodation statistics even when there is economic activity at the hotel. Quarantine guest nights cannot be assigned by purpose as holiday, occupation or course, conference. It was not possible to extract all quarantine guest nights and some stays at quarantine hotels are included in the statistics for May. Hotels that are exclusively quarantine hotels are not included in the statistics.