EIS is seeking a partner who would handle sales promotion and business marketing of Estonia as a travel destination to wholesalers, tour operators, travel agents, and other companies, and who would also provide communication services. For this, EIS has allocated €3 million, to which VAT will be added, and the framework agreement will be concluded for up to two years.

The foundation measures the effectiveness of tourism marketing, among other things, by the contacts created, the number of visitors to Estonia, and the money they spend here. With the services procured, the awareness of Estonia as a destination should increase and demand for Estonian tourism should grow.

In addition, EIS launched this week a procurement with a volume of €1 million to find an implementer for communication of the e‑residency program. According to the procurement conditions, the partner's task will be to convey to foreign markets the message that Estonia is the fastest and most efficient way in the world to create and manage a European Union company regardless of location, and to position Estonia as a leader in the global business environment and digital entrepreneurship.

In September, EIS completed a procurement with a volume of €300,000 to find a provider of business marketing services on the Japanese and U.S. markets within the Beyond Nordics cooperation project. This is a project in which Estonia, Latvia, and two Finnish cities are introduced as a joint tourism destination to the U.S. and Japanese markets. The evaluation of bids is currently underway.

Visitors are projected to spend more during trips to Estonia

EIS's head of foreign tourism markets, Agnia Nast, said that the economic benefit to Estonia is assessed at several levels, and the broadest indicator is how much foreign visitors spend in Estonia.

"In 2025, this sum was €1.65 billion, which is 10 percent more than the year before. Together with the export revenue of Estonian passenger transport companies, tourism services export reached €2.21 billion," Nast said.

She added that these sums cannot be taken as the direct result of one campaign or procurement, because whether a person travels to Estonia is influenced simultaneously by many circumstances: flight and ferry connections, prices, the general economic situation, destination awareness, and the sales work of tourism companies themselves.

"Therefore, in addition to general tourism revenue, we also monitor results closer to our activities: what contacts we can create for Estonian companies, whether trips to Estonia reach the offerings of foreign tour operators, and whether new travel products, contracts, and sales emerge from cooperation. The impact on visitor numbers and spending may manifest only over a longer period," Nast said.

The funding source for the procurement is European structural funds. According to Nast, the four‑year agreement covers 15 markets from which there is the greatest potential to bring visitors to Estonia and increase tourism revenue. She emphasized that concluding a framework agreement means an opportunity and readiness, not an obligation to order.

"We decide specific activities and their volume according to how the market is doing, what connections exist with Estonia, where there is a lack of information about Estonia, and what contacts our companies need. Thus the procurement gives us the opportunity to act where and when it is most beneficial," Nast said.

10,000 new e‑residency applicants expected

According to EIS e‑residency program deputy head Katriin Alasoo, the reason for their communication procurement is that the state has set ownership expectations for the program, and the supervisory board confirms specific goals for the program each year.

"As a result of the procurement, we expect a strong partner on the UK market who would help us reach the target group effectively through media relations and events. The goal is to support the achievement of the program's strategic objectives and increase the number of new e‑residents," Alasoo said.

For next year, the e‑residency program has been given the goal of bringing 10,000 applications from various target markets, including the United Kingdom, and tax revenue of €102 million to the Estonian state.

Alasoo pointed out that currently there are more than 5,600 e‑residents from the United Kingdom, and with the help of international partners EIS wishes to grow this number steadily.

"1,576 companies have been created, and according to Statistics Estonia, last year companies of UK‑origin e‑residents generated an estimated €4 million in tax revenue," she said. "The United Kingdom is one of the three most important European target markets from which entrepreneurs create and manage companies registered in Estonia, thereby contributing to Estonia's economy and tax revenue growth."

She highlighted that this year, with the support of the UK PR partner, coverage has been achieved in several influential publications, such as Think Digital Partners, TechRound, Business Quarter, Startups Magazine, UK Tech News, and Euronews.

According to EIS, e‑residency is one of the highest‑yield programs for the Estonian state, and as of the end of August this year, the direct revenue created by e‑residency has exceeded €465 million.

"In 2025, every euro invested in the functioning of the program returned more than €12 to the state. In addition to tax and state fee revenue, e‑residency has brought Estonia significant international media attention, with an estimated value reaching hundreds of millions of euros," Alasoo said.

Bringing Japanese and U.S. tourists to Estonia important

The procurement for the U.S. and Japanese markets that ended in September is, according to Alasoo, connected to the Beyond Nordics program, which is carried out together with Finnish and Latvian partners. Together with partners, its budget is €2.8 million. 80 percent of the budget comes from the European Union's Interreg program.

"Estonia was invited into the project at Finland's initiative as a national tourism marketing agency in the region with notable experience on the U.S. and Japanese markets," Alasoo added.

According to her, U.S. and Japanese visitors are valuable for Estonia because their trips involve significant spending. At the same time, they have a long journey to Estonia, and here one must offer sufficiently strong and high‑quality experiences and good reasons to stay longer than one stop.

"Through Beyond Nordics we develop, together with entrepreneurs, travel products that connect several destinations and help bring them into the offerings of U.S. and Japanese tour operators. The goal of the project is to create new sales opportunities for our tourism companies, from which in the longer term more visits and tourism revenue would come to Estonia," Alasoo said.

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