There was a 2.5 percent increase in British visits to Finland in 2005, according to official statistics released this month. Visitors from the UK spent a total of 420,669 nights in Finnish accommodation facilities during 2005, up 2.5 per cent on the previous year.

Britain is the fourth largest market for Finnish inbound tourism. Only Sweden, Russia and Germany generate larger visitor numbers than United Kingdom.

Commenting on the new figures, Finnish Tourist Board director Anne Lind said she was convinced the upward trend would continue. “By the end of April we will have three brand new airline routes connecting the UK with Finland. More will follow by the end of the year. So we are confident this figure will keep on rising,” she said.

December is the busiest month for Finnish Tourism and visitor numbers from Britain have increased steadily year by year, reaching a respectable 106,184 overnights in 2005. This was a 5.7 per cent increase compared with 2004 when the respective figure was 100,057. January 2006 overnights were up by nine per cent and reached 38,537 compared with 35,382 in 2005.
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