Tallinn receives 328 cruise ship visits this year

The berthing of the cruise ship Astor in Tallinn’s Old City Harbour this week will officially kick off the summer cruise season with a total of 328 ship visits scheduled. On the busiest days of the summer season, which lasts until September, up to 9 000 cruise passengers a day are expected to arrive in Tallinn, the state-owned Port of Tallinn told BNS reporter.

“During the beginning of the summer cruise season one to six cruise boats will dock in Old City Harbour almost every day and in the middle of summer up to 9 000 cruise passengers will be visiting Tallinn on the busiest days,” head of the port company’s marketing and communications department Sirle Arro told BNS.

Ten cruise ships will call at Tallinn for the first time during the start of the season. The Spanish cruise operator Pullmantur will this year again organise five turnaround cruises with Tallinn as the starting and ending point of Baltic Sea cruises. “In addition to those, there will be a partial turnaround cruise of the German ship Deutschland with some of the passengers beginning and others ending the cruise in Tallinn,” Arro said.

The longest ship to put in at Tallinn this year is the 317-meter Celebrity Eclipse with more than 2 800 passengers on board, whereas the 311-meter Adventure of the Seas will bring the most tourists, over 3 000, to the Estonian capital.

The summer cruise season runs until 26 September but cruise tourists are also expected to arrive in Tallinn in October, November and December. All told, approximately 485 000 cruise passengers will visit Tallinn this year on board 328 ships, the highest number ever, Port of Tallinn said. Last year Port of Tallinn served 440 000 cruise tourists on board 294 ships.

Source: Estonian Review

Number of accommodated tourists climbs 5 pct

Altogether 160 000 domestic and foreign tourists stayed in the accommodation establishments of Estonia during February, 5% more than in February 2012, Statistics Estonia said on Wednesday. The number of domestic tourists and foreign tourists alike increased.

The number of foreign tourists that used the services of accommodation establishments was 91 000, 6 000 tourists or 7% more than in same month a year ago. Most of the foreign tourists, or 87%, stayed in accommodation establishments of Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu. Respectively 7%, 10% and 9% more foreign tourists stayed in the accommodation establishments of these cities than a year ago.

As usual, more than half of the foreign tourists were Finns and the number of Finns in accommodation establishments increased 19% compared to February 2012. Russian tourists staying in accommodation establishments numbered 16 000, marking an increase by one-fourth over the same month a year ago. The number of tourists from Latvia decreased. Also the number of tourists from Sweden, Germany and Norway declined.

Of the clients of accommodation establishments, 43% were domestic tourists. In all 69 000 domestic tourists used the services of accommodation establishments, over 2 000 more than in February 2012.

In February 835 accommodation establishments with 17 000 rooms and 38 000 bed spaces were available for tourists. There were nearly 900 more bed spaces available than in February 2012. The room occupancy rate was 35% and the bed occupancy rate 28%. Compared to February 2012, the room occupancy rate decreased by one percentage point. The bed occupancy rate in large accommodation establishments, or establishments with 100 or more rooms, was 41%, significantly higher than the Estonian< average.

The average cost of a guest night in an accommodation establishment was 30 euros, two euros more than in February 2012.

Source: Estonian Review

Estonian, Russian PMs avoided thorny issues

Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev made sure that no thorny political topics were raised during their meeting in St Petersburg on Friday, writes Äripäev.

Commenting the meeting that was held in the framework of the Baltic Sea States Summit, Ansip said that he and Medvedev discussed possibilities to remove obstacles from bilateral trade.

“We both stated that our trade has grown notably in recent years. While in 2000, Russia accounted for 2.4% of Estonia’s total exports, the figure is now between 12 and 16%.” Ansip said that Medvedev also mentioned rapid growth in tourism of Russians into Estonia which is growing between 30 and 50% a year.

Both found that the current border crossing system was not effective for promoting economic and tourism relations.

Speaking of bilateral relations, Ansip said that economic relations between Estonia and Russia are now the best in the last twenty years.

Read more from BBN (Baltic Business News ) here

Ryanair to fly to Bremen and Frankfurt from Tallinn

The low cost carrier Ryanair will on 2 April resume flights between Tallinn and Bremen and Tallinn and Frankfurt Hahn. From 31 March onwards, Ryanair will fly to Tallinn from London Stansted instead of Luton, it appears from the Ryanair website.

Flights between Tallinn and Dublin will resume on 16 March, flights between Tallinn and Girona, near Barcelona, and between Tallinn and Manchester on 25 March, and between Tallinn and Dusseldorf Weeze and Tallinn and Stockholm Skavsta on 26 March.

In October and November 2012 Ryanair halted flights for the winter on seven out of its ten operations to Tallinn. The flights not discontinued were from London Luton, Oslo Rygge and Milan Bergamo.

Source: BNS through Estonian Review

Tourism services accounted for 7.4 pct of exports in 2012

The share of tourism services in the export of goods and services from Estonia was 7.4% in 2012, Enterprise Estonia said. The total value of export of tourism services was 1.24 billion euros last year, according to data from the Bank of Estonia. Exports were bigger by 32 million euros or 2.7% than the previous high from 2011. The export of travel services, or spending by foreign visitors in Estonia, grew 6% year on year to 950 million euros.

Foreign visitors paid Estonian transport companies 286 million euros in 2012, 6.6% less than in 2011. Payments to shipping companies decreased 1.4% and payments to airlines fell 31%. During the year, 1.87 million foreign visitors stayed at accommodation establishments in Estonia, 3.6% more than in 2011.

Foreign tourists spent 3.82 million nights in Estonia overall, 2% more than in 2011. In the two previous years the annual rate of growth was 17%. In 2012, tourism received a boost from new transport connections, aftermath of media coverage of the European Capital of Culture 2011, marketing by the private and public sector, and an overall upward trend in European tourism, Tarmo Mutso, chief of tourism development at Enterprise Estonia, said in a press release.

Just like in 2011, the number of tourists from Russia and of the nights spent by them in Estonian accommodation establishments grew the most last year, including in all counties of Estonia. The number of Russian tourists was 266 192, 31 % bigger than in the year before.

The share of the Finnish market in incoming tourism declined and overnight stays by Finns accounted for 43% of all overnight stays by foreign tourists. Finnish tourists numbered 829 225, 1.4% fewer than in 2011. A factor reducing demand was the rise of the prices of accommodation services to almost the pre-crisis level, Enterprise Estonia said.

Third place in incoming tourism belonged to Germany. Altogether German tourists spent 111 251 nights in accommodation establishments of Estonia, 7% more than a year ago. The increase in the number of nights spent by German tourists was the biggest in Tallinn.

Source: BNS news through Estonian Review

2,8 million hotel tourists last year

According to Statistics Estonia, in 2012, 2.8 million domestic and foreign tourists stayed in Estonian accommodation establishments, which is 4% more than the year earlier. Compared to 2011, the number of foreign tourists increased by 4% and the number of domestic tourists by 5%.

As in previous years, foreign tourists accounted for two thirds of the total number of tourists. The neighbouring countries Finland, Russia and Latvia are the largest tourism partner countries of Estonia – 64% of all foreign tourists that used the services of accommodation establishments arrived from those countries. Compared to 2011, the number of tourists arriving from Russia and Latvia increased by 31% and 18%, respectively. The number of tourists from Finland, which showed a downward trend in most months of the year, fell 1% (by 11,000 tourists) in 2012 as a whole. Fewer tourists than in 2011 arrived from Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway, Italy and Poland. At the same time, the number of tourists from Asian and American countries and Australia staying in accommodation establishments increased compared to 2011.

In 2012, 966,000 domestic tourists stayed in accommodation establishments, which is 5% more than in 2011 and 2% more than in 2008, the record year of domestic tourism. Domestic tourists preferred the accommodation establishments of Southern Estonia, with 30% of all accommodated domestic tourists staying there; and also the accommodation establishments of Western and Northern Estonia, with each accounting for 26% of domestic tourists. The number of domestic tourists increased the most (11%) in the accommodation establishments of Northern Estonia.

In December, 131,000 foreign and 78,000 domestic tourists stayed in accommodation establishments, which is respectively 5% and 9% more than in December 2011. 756 accommodation establishments with 17,000 rooms and 38,000 bed-places were available for tourists. The room occupancy rate was 40% and the bed occupancy rate was 34%. The average cost of a guest night in an accommodation establishment was 31 euros and it was one euro more expensive than in December 2011.

Read more from Statistics Estonia

airBaltic to charge EUR 10 for physical check-in

Latvian airline airBaltic announced today of changes in its check-in procedures effective from February 1.

Customers who prefer traditional check-in will be charged a fee of EUR 10/LVL 7 for the service, if their ticket is purchased starting from February 1, 2013.

Personal check-in service at airBaltic airports is offered free of charge to Business Flex and Business class passengers, BalticMiles VIP card holders, passengers with children up to 2 years old, passengers requiring special service/medical assistance, and passengers travelling from airports, where self-service check-in is not available.

Read more from BBN

Hotel room costs about 31 eur

According to Statistics Estonia, in October 2012, 220,000 domestic and foreign tourists stayed in accommodation establishments, which was 3% more than in October of the previous year.

In October, 144,000 foreign tourists stayed in accommodation establishments or 65% of the total number of tourists using the services of accommodation establishments. Two thirds of the foreign tourists arrived from the neighbouring countries Finland, Russia and Latvia. Compared to October of the previous year, the number of tourists from Finland decreased 3% and the number of tourists from Russia and Latvia increased 18% and 11%, respectively. The number of tourists from other larger tourism partner countries – Sweden and Germany – stayed on the previous year’s level and the number of tourists from Norway decreased by 3% compared to October of the previous year. Traditionally most of the foreign tourists stayed in Tallinn – 77% of the accommodated foreign tourists. 7% of the foreign tourists stayed in accommodation establishments of Pärnu county, 5% in Tartu county and 3% in Ida-Viru county.

In October, 76,000 domestic tourists stayed in accommodation establishments, which was 6% more than in October of the previous year. About one fifth of accommodated domestic tourists stayed in accommodation establishments of Tallinn, 14% in Pärnu county, 13% in Tartu county and a tenth in Ida-Viru county.

In October, 820 accommodation establishments with 18,000 rooms and 39,000 bed-places were available for tourists. The room occupancy rate was 45% and the bed occupancy rate was 35%. In October, 36% of bed places in sales were in the accommodation establishments of Tallinn and the bed occupancy rate was significantly higher in Tallinn than the national average – the bed occupancy rate was 50%. 13%, 7% and 6% of bed places in sales were in the accommodation establishments of Pärnu, Tartu and Ida-Viru counties, respectively; the bed occupancy rate in Tartu and Pärnu counties were equal to the national average, in Ida-Viru county, however, five percentage points higher.

In October, the average cost of a guest night in an accommodation establishment was 31 euros and it was three euros more expensive than in the same period of the previous year. The average cost of a guest night was higher in Tallinn than the national average.

Accommodation by regions, October 2012

Accommodation	Total	N	N-E	Central Estonia	W	S
Acc.	820	169	53	78	246	274
Rooms	17 789	8 041	1 043	1 043	4 256	3 406
Beds	39 443	16 647	2 181	2 604	9 701	8 310
Room occupancyrate, %	45	58	49	28	36	30
Bed occupancy rate, %	35	47	40	19	30	22
Touristsaccommodated	219 949	134 723	11 956	8 496	34 364	30 410
Nights spent	432 007	242 388	26 952	15 669	91 117	55 881
residents of Estonia	134 088	35 293	14 931	11 263	35 986	36 615
foreign visitors	297 919	207 095	12 021	4 406	55 131	19 266
Average cost of guest night, eur	31	35	29	28	25	24

Source: Statistics Estonia

Ryanair to restore most flights to Tallinn

The Irish discount airline Ryanair  confirmed information that the airline would restore at least five air routes to Tallinn.

Elina Hakkarainen, Ryanair’s Nordic and Baltic market and sales director, told BNS that the reopening of five routes had been endorsed and tickets to the routes could be bought from the website of the company. “We are working on the summer timetable and all the destinations will be endorsed during the next couple of weeks,” Hakkarainen said. “The opening of the Bremen and Frankfurt Hahn destinations will also be made during the next few weeks.”

It appears from the Ryanair web site that flights to Dublin will be renewed from 16 March, to the Girona Airport near Barcelona and to Manchester on 25 March, and to Dusseldorf Weeze and Stockholm Skavsta from 26 March.

Last year 376 849 Ryanair passengers flew via Tallinn, 20% of the passengers that used the Tallinn Airport.

Source: Estonian Review

Estonians can travel visa-free to over 100 countries

At a meeting with representatives of the Estonian Travel and Tourism Association, Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said that Estonian citizens can currently travel to over 100 countries without a visa. “The most recent additions to the list of visa-free travel destinations are Brazil and Kyrgyzstan, and as of 10 January Armenia will also be added to the list,” he stated.

Paet added that the Foreign Ministry’s goal is to facilitate citizens’ travel to popular destinations that have a visa requirement. “We are working on increasing the number of countries to which Estonian citizens can travel without needing a visa,” he said.

The foreign minister noted that year by year, the number of people travelling to Estonia is also growing. “For example, in the first ten months of 2010 our representations in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Pskov, Kiev, Minsk, and Tbilisi received a total of 90 037 visa applications. In the first ten months of this year, they received 138 823 applications,” Paet stated.

The foreign minister said that Estonia has simplified its visa policies within the framework of the Schengen legal space. “Our foreign representations are issuing more and more multiple-entry visas valid for up to five years. In 2009, we abolished the requirements for an invitation to be filed together with the visa application,” said the foreign minister. As of 2007 a visa application can be filled out in advance over the internet, which speeds up the processing of the application.

The visa application process is also simplified by the opportunity to send an application using an outside courier service – this option is available in Russia and Ukraine, where an agreement is in place with the company Pony Express. “Considering the size of the countries, it is significantly easier for people in more remote regions to apply for a visa in this way,” Paet asserted.

Paet noted that issues related to the safety of travellers are also of utmost importance to the Foreign Ministry. “We are pleased that most travel agencies explain to their clients how important it is to have travel insurance and also offer opportunities to purchase insurance. We could make it a goal to not send a single person on a trip without travel insurance,” emphasised the foreign minister.

Source: Estonian Review