Home > Statistics > Finnish Travel > 2010 > April > Ash cloud halted air travel for a week in April 2010

Published: 1 June 2010

Ash cloud halted air travel for a week in April 2010

Interruption of air travel caused by the volcano eruption in Iceland complicated leisure trips abroad for 177,000 Finns. For 53,000 Finns the return home from abroad became more difficult and for 124,000 Finns the trip abroad was cancelled or postponed. Regardless of this, Finns made in April 344,000 leisure trips abroad with overnight stays, which is nine per cent more than in the corresponding period of one year ago.

Finnish residents' overnight leisure trips in April 2010 and annual change, preliminary data

	Trips in April	Annual change, % 4/2010 - 4/2009	Trips in January - April	Cumulative annual change, % 1-4/2010 - 1-4/2009
Domestic trips with paid accommodation	400 000	3	1 545 000	13
Trips to own free-time residence and visits to friends and relatives	2 003 000	23	6 504 000	13
Trips in Finland, total	2 403 000	19	8 049 000	13
Trips abroad, overnight in country of destination	344 000	9	1 109 000	7
- Estonia	84 000	53	230 000	56
- Sweden	28 000	-15	94 000	4
- Other countries	232 000	2	786 000	-2
Cruises, overnight on board only	139 000	25	537 000	23
- To Estonia	34 000	36	134 000	2
- To Sweden	105 000	22	401 000	33
Trips abroad, total	483 000	13	1 646 000	11
Leisure trips, total	2 886 000	18	9 695 000	13

In April Finnish residents made 483,000 overnight leisure trips abroad. In all, 344,000 of them included one or more overnights in the country of destination, twenty-four per cent in Estonia and eight per cent in Sweden. Most of the cruises including overnights on board only were to Sweden and Estonia.

The volcano eruption in Iceland cancelled or postponed planned leisure trips for many Finns. However, trips abroad with overnight stays grew by nine per cent compared with the previous year’s April. The growing popularity of Estonia is visible in these figures, as travelling to Estonia increased by 53 per cent from last year’s April. Cruises to Sweden and Estonia increased their appeal by 25 per cent from the year before.

Finnish residents made 2.4 million leisure trips in Finland. This is nineteen per cent up on the corresponding period in the year before. Most of the trips, or 2 million, included free accommodation at one’s own free-time residence, with relatives or friends or in some other type of free accommodation. Interruption of air travel did not greatly hinder leisure trips in Finland.

These preliminary data are based on Statistics Finland’s Finnish Travel Survey for which 1,311 persons aged 15 to 74 permanently resident in Finland were interviewed in May.

The final annual data on the Finnish Travel Survey are published on the homepage of the statistics in July following the statistical reference year. In addition, quarterly preliminary data are published in connection with the monthly publication Tourism Statistics (accommodation statistics) in six weeks from the end of the relevant quarter.

Finnish residents' leisure trips by month 2008–2010, preliminary data

Source: Finnish Travel, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Taru Tamminen (09) 1734 2243, Ritva Tikkanen (09) 1734 3300, liikenne.matkailu@stat.fi

Director in charge: Hannele Orjala

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Updated 1.6.2010