More tourists visit Svalbard
The Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard is gaining popularity as a tourist destination, especially amongst Norwegians.
In 2011 there were about 85 000 guest nights in the collective tourist accommodation establishments on Svalbard. This is 5 700 more guest nights than in 2010.
Norwegian guest nights accounted for 78 percent and foreign guest nights 22 percent. The number of Norwegians visiting the Archipelago has increased while the number of foreigners has gone somewhat down.
Swedish and British guests accounted for 16 per cent each of the total foreign guest nights in 2011. German and Danish guest nights immediately followed with 13 per cent and 9 per cent of the total in the past year respectively.
Read also: Tourism in Arctic: attractive and accessible
Svalbard has a little more than 800 hotel beds in the high season in May-September.
The statistics only cover guest nights of the commercial accommodation establishments in Longyearbyen, and not those in Barentsburg or other areas on Svalbard, Statistics Norway reports.
