E-hotel

Latvian tourism development state agency tells that Latvian hoteliers in year 2007 can expect lots of Lithuanian tourists. Lithuanians were majority in Latvian arrival statistics 2006 and number is supposed to even grow this year. Tourist flow from Russia will grow as well. Because Russians need visa to enter Latvia, they stay longer when here: in average it`s more than 4 nights. Germans will come as well as they always did, but now they can do it for even cheaper price, because Ryanair now flies Riga-Bremen. Then comes Estonians and Finns. Finns used to visit Estonia a lot, but now they go further, so Latvia is their new hot destination. In my opinion this prognosis is little bit late, because Finns come already for two years and soon they will start to go to Lithuania as new destination.

There are some perspective markets: USA – Americans stay there in average 6 nights, France – French people like velo tourism and stays in average 5 nights, Poland – interesting and growing market, many Poles come for business and stays even month or more (at least in my hotel). Last year there were almost 70 thousand Polish tourists in Latvia. Riga and Jurmala`s hotels can expect more Norwegians because of cheap flights operated by Norvegian. Besides Norwegians are in first place by tourist money left: 97 lats in one day per person last year. There might be growing interest from Japan and Netherlands as well.

In general there are more and more tourists coming to Latvia and not only to capital city, but also to regions. Last year we got guests from Germany, Finland, Estonia (lots of them), Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, but also from Mexico, Argentina, Australia, USA, China and other far away places.

Tags: latvia, statistics, hotels, guests