Conferences, spa tourism help to fill the long winter void

  • 2005-03-09
  • By TBT staff
TALLINN - Accommodation businesses, along with the rest of the tourism industry, are using spa and conference services to help entice visitors to the country during the long and slow winter months.

"The share of spa services grew last year and continues to grow this year," said Donald Visnapuu, General Manager of the Estonian Hotel and Restaurant Association.

According to data gathered by the EHRA, the 56 hotels that are members of the organization - which have a combined total of 5,037 rooms - earned about 1.4 billion kroons (89 million euros) in net revenues last year, or 35 percent more than in 2003.

From the 2004 net revenues, 22 million kroons came from conference services, 827 million kroons from hotel rooms, 437 million kroons from food and beverage sales and some 106 million kroons from other services.

Visnapuu said the number of rooms among EHRA members grew last year by an unprecedented 31 percent compared to 2003. On average, the occupancy rate at hotels monitored by the EHRA stood at 60.3 percent in 2004, or about 5 percent more than 2003.

"Conference services are being promoted more actively. Enterprise Estonia [a governmental business development agency] has recently been helping to fund that sector.

We in Estonia really have a problem with the seasonal decline. We need to provide more tourist activities in the first and the fourth quarter of the year," said Visnapuu.

"There is a development potential, and that is in conference tourism, cultural events, and so on. This is what can bring people to Estonia during the low season," he added.

Visnapuu said the capital city still enjoyed more tourist traffic, mostly because the ferry connection with Finland and Sweden remains the main gate to Estonia.

"Most of the tourists Estonia sees first come to Tallinn and spend a night here either on arrival or on their way back," said Visnapuu.

The accommodation market in the rest of the country is lagging behind, especially during the low season.

"The season-based fluctuations are much higher outside Tallinn, because here [in Tallinn] business tourism somehow helps level the problem of the low season," Visnapuu observed.

He added that he believed EHRA statistics were quite representative of the hotel market as a whole. In all, there are 135 hotels operating in Estonia.

"But if we take smaller accommodation businesses, like hostels and tourist farms outside Tallinn, their seasonality will be even higher and their average occupancy rate will stand at about 40 percent," said Visnapuu.