One third of all visitors were tourists from Finland, although 20,000 fewer visited than during the same period last year, the Bank of Estonia said in a press release on Wednesday. The number of residents of other EU countries increased somewhat meanwhile, with visits from the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and the Czech Republic up by more than one tenth. Visits from Belgium and Spain, however, decreased by one fifth.

Visits from Russia were up 4% on year, totalling 218,000, while visits from Belarus decreased. Visits from Asia were likewise down 10%.

Half of all visitors stayed in Estonia overnight, with the average length of overnight stays remaining at four days.

Estonian residents, meanwhile, visited foreign countries around one million times in the second quarter of 2018, which was more or less the same as in the second quarter of last year. Tourists from Estonia spent an estimated €260 million abroad, which was €10 million more than in the second quarter of last year.

As usual, Estonian residents visited Finland the most, paying a total of 158,000 visits there, indicating a decrease of 5% on year. The number of trips to other EU states was likewise down 2%, with notable increases in the number of trips to Bulgaria, Croatia and France, but fewer visits to Belgium, Italy and Denmark.

Although only one visit in five was made to countries outside the European Union, there was a rise of 25,000 or 14% in the number of such visits. There was a rise of one third in the number of visits from Estonia to Turkey and one tenth of visits by residents of Estonia were to countries in the CIS.

The number of overnight visits fell slightly and their average length was 7% longer at 3.8 days than in the same period of 2017.