Accommodation

The number of businesses for all accommodation establishments corresponds to the number of establishments open to the public at least one day during the reference period.

Commercial guest nights: Guest nights at hotels, short-term holiday dwellings, camping sites and youth hostels.

Hotels and similar accommodation: establishments that offer accommodation typically on a daily or weekly basis, principally for short stays by visitors. This includes the provision of furnished accommodation in guest rooms and suites. Services include daily cleaning and bed-making.

Country of residence: International visitors are classified by the country where they reside, not necessarily their citizenship. From a tourism perspective, anyone who relocates from one country to another, and stays for longer than a year, is considered residing in that country. Citizenship is indicated in the person's passport (or other identification documents), while the country of residence must be determined using a question or inferred e.g. from the person's address.

Guest night: One person accommodated one night. A person can have several guest nights.

Arrival: a person who arrives at an accommodation establishment for overnight stay. An arrival counts only once regardless of how long they stay.

Beds and rooms correspond to the number of beds and rooms in businesses open to the public. The number of rooms and beds represent two different ways of measuring hotel capacity. In theory, hotels with only double rooms can obtain an occupancy rate of 100 per cent, while the bed capacity is 50 per cent only. The utilization of the room and the utilization of bed capacity may, therefore, develop differently from one period to another.

The utilization of bed capacity corresponds to the number of guest nights in per cent of the number of available beds, where the number of available beds is the number of beds multiplied by the establishment's number of open days during the reference period.

The utilization of room capacity corresponds to the number of occupied rooms in per cent of the number of available rooms, where the number of available rooms is the number of rooms multiplied by the establishment's number of open days during the reference period.

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.
From January 1st, 2016, the VAT for accommodation sales increased from 8 to 10 per cent. From January 1st, 2018, VAT increased from 10 to 12 per cent. This may affect some comparability over time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, VAT was temporarily reduced to 6 percent, effective from April 1^st 2020 until 30^th September 2021.

The three purposes of guest nights at hotels are divided as follows,
Course, conference are guests who are at a course or a conference, independent of whether the conference is at the hotel or in the area. If the guest has a joining family member, the family member will be registered as a course, conference guest.

Occupation is guests who are traveling for business, contractors, public employees or equivalent, and are staying at a hotel while conducting their business. If family members join, they too will be registered as occupation, even though the family members may be traveling for holiday purposes.

Holiday, recreation are guests who are traveling for holiday or recreation.

Holiday dwellings are self-catering huts/rooms with limited service. The service does not include the making of beds, cleaning of rooms, and sanitary equipment. The establishments must be under the same management, be run on a commercial basis, and have their own reception.

Camping sites are establishments that provide accommodation in caravans, tents and campers. They can also offer accommodation in huts but are classified as holiday dwellings if they have only huts.

The total capacity for a camping site is the total number of huts and areas for tents/caravans or campers, including seasonal contracts.

Seasonal contract: Caravan/tent on seasonal contract means the rent of an area is at a fixed price irrespective of use.

A private cabin/holiday house/apartment/room is one built primarily for private, not commercial, purposes.

Region is a level between county and the entire country. The regions consist of a certain number of counties.

Tourism region is a regional classification (standard) for a level between county and municipality (66 units). These regions have been designated by a tourism bureau or other agency within the tourism industry in collaboration with Statistics Norway. Tourism regions should not overlap the county borders.

The survey is classified according to the Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC2007), a Norwegian adaptation of EUROSTATs NACE standard. For more information, refer to NACE 55 (Accommodation) in https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/6.
Standard for county: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/104
Standard for municipality: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/131
Standard for tourism region: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/527
Standard for region: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/106