Some local businesses report a fall in trade in comparison with previous years, however.

Four large cruise ships arrived, joining a smaller cruise vessel already docked.

David Ryan Jenkins, a board member of the Estonian Travel and Tourism Association (EFTL) told AK the number of tourists has generally been falling compared with pre-Covid times, but the duration of ship stays in port has risen.

He said: "The overall number of tourists is still very small compared with what we had before the pandemic."

"Certainly, what is very positive is that these ships we have here are generally full, and the visits have become longer. Whereas earlier, ships would arrive at nine in the morning and leave by five in the afternoon, then now it is very common for them to arrive early in the morning and stay until midnight," he went on.

Vello Leitham, owner of the Kehrwieder Café in the Old Town, noted that the number of visits indeed rises during the peak cruise season, but the café's sales have fallen compared with last year's cruise season.

"When the cruise ships are in, there is more work, that much is clear. Compared with last year, [this] June was about the same. We approach this analytically, and only this morning I noticed that over the first nine days of July, sales of items are down by about 12 percent compared with last year," Leitham said.

Four huge cruise ships (see gallery) docked at Tallinn's cruise terminal Wednesday morning, and nearly 8,000 tourists from all four made a beeline for the Old Town and city center, with an air of anticipation and excitement

One, Birthe, said: "We made a plan and we looked up all the things to see, like churches and stuff like that."

Lisa, a tourist from Germany, told AK: "We want to go to the museum; submarine (possibly the seaplane harbor museum – ed.) and then we will to go to a beach,."

Emilio from Mexico said. "The place is so good, the food and the people are nice."

Three of the four cruise ships departed from Tallinn on Wednesday evening at around 6 p.m., while the last one was due to leave around midnight.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!