The increase, which was just 0.6% on 2017, nonetheless represents the 11th year in a row passenger through-flow has been increasing. The rise was particularly boosted by cruise passengers, which also reached a record high at just under 6,000 (often much larger) ships for the year, though the number of passengers destined for Finland remained constant on the previous year.

"During the summer cruise season, 339 cruise ships stopped in Tallinn and brought 635,068 passengers, which was 28 visits and over 70,000 passengers more than in 2017.'' said commercial manager and Port of Tallinn board member Margus Vihman in a press release.

''8.83 million people travelled to Finland to year end, which is practically the same as 2017. 1.03 million people travelled on the Tallinn-Stockholm route and 850,000 on the Tallinn-St. Petersburg route,'' Mr Vihman continued.

Breakdown of countries of origin, shipping operators

A new app compiling statistics on passenger data, including citizenship, age and gender, of those passing through the port demonstrated that Finns made up the largest component at 42%, followed by Estonian citizens at 24%. No other nationalities or citizenships came to anything like that proportion – 5% of passengers were German citizens, 3.5% from the US and 2.8% Swedish citizens, according to the data. The largest single demographic group was males in the 35-39 age group, Mr Vihman said.

The breakdown of the top four individual vessels and their operators by number of passengers for 2018 (all from Tallinn to Finland) is:

1) Tallink Megastar - just over 2 million.

2) Eckerö Finlandia - 1.86 million.

3) Tallink Star - 1.75 million.

4) Viking Line XPRS - 1.74 million.

Breakdown of market share by operators for 2018 is:

1) Tallink - 57%.

2=) Viking - 18%.

2=) Eckerö - 18%.

The remainder is made up of all the cruise operators combined (6%) and Moby SPL, which operates cruises to St Petersburg (1%).

A total of just under 6,000 passenger ships passed through Tallinn through the whole of 2018.

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