The number of guest nights in Latvia booked via Booking, Airbnb, Expedia and Tripadvisor has reduced in 2021

According to the latest data resulting from cooperation project between the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) and statistical office of the European Union Eurostat, 700.9 thousand guest nights¹ were spent in Latvia in 2021, which were offered via one of the four collaborative economy platforms – Booking, Airbnb, Expedia and Tripadvisor. That is 6.2 % less than in 2020, when the number of guest nights comprised 747.6 thousand and 47.6 % less than in 2019 before the pandemic, when the number of guest nights reached 1.3 million nights.

The data provides information on guest nights offered via four collaborative economy platforms – Booking, Airbnb, Expedia and Tripadvisor – in short-stay accommodation such as guest apartments, suites, holiday homes, rest-houses, cottages, etc., does not include hotels and similar accommodation, as well as camping grounds. The same as in statistics on tourist accommodation, they show the impact of COVID-19 – a sharp drop in March, April and at the end of 2020 and at the beginning of 2021, however, in general during 2021 season and at the end of the year, the number of nights by guests increased again.

As the number of international guests has significantly decreased due to the pandemic, compared to previous years, the share of guest nights booked by domestic guests has increased – in 2021, a half (50.5 %) of guest nights were booked via collaborative economy platforms by domestic guests, a half (49.5 %) by international guests. In 2020, 67.8 % of guest nights were booked by international guests, but in 2019 their share comprised 87.4 %. On average, one booking in these accommodations comprised 6.2 nights, of which for international guests – 9.7, but for domestic guests – 4.6 nights. The average number of guest nights characterizes the volume of one booking and is obtained by dividing the total number of guest nights by the number of bookings. Most of accommodations booked have capacity of up to 10 beds (93.5 % of nights booked).

In 2021, compared to the previous year, in all three Baltic countries there was a decrease in guest nights booked by international guests – in Latvia by 31.5 %, in Estonia – by 15.1 %, in Lithuania – by 4.2 %, however, both in Estonia and Lithuania the total number of nights booked increased last year (by 5.1 % and 14.5 %, respectively).

In 2021, 42.7 % of all guest nights were spent in Riga, 26.8 % – in Kurzeme, 17.8 % – in Pierīga, 6.7 % – in Vidzeme, 4.1 % – in Latgale, and 2 % – in Zemgale. Latvian residents mostly stayed in Kurzeme (37.7 % of guest nights) and Riga (22.9 % of guest nights). International guests mostly stayed in Riga (62.9 % of guest nights), Pierīga (16.4 % of guest nights) and Kurzeme (15.6 % of guest nights).

The data available on 5 largest cities in Latvia by population – Riga, Daugavpils, Liepāja, Jelgava, Jūrmala – show that in 2021, compared to the previous year, the number of guest nights increased in Daugavpils (by 15.5 %) and Liepāja (by 8.7 %), but decreased in Jūrmala (by 26.7 %), Riga (by 16.8 %) and Jelgava (by 11.5 %).

In 2021, the busiest months were July and August, and these two summer months covered 40.8 % of the annual number of guest nights, while the share of January and February was the lowest – only 3.3 % of the total number of guest nights.

The majority of guest nights in Latvia were booked by guests from Lithuania (62.6 thousand), Germany (48.7 thousand), United Kingdom (36.8 thousand), France (25.1 thousand), Estonia (15.7 thousand), USA (13.9 thousand), Russia (13.8 thousand), Poland (11.9 thousand) and Spain (11.2 thousand).

Out of four platforms mentioned, most accommodations are available on the platform Booking, where in August 2021² around 2 thousand tourist accommodations of the appropriate types (apartments, guest and holiday homes, rest-houses, cottages, youth hostels, etc.) with around 12 thousand beds³ were offered. About 44 % of the dwellings are apartments.

Data on guest nights in the European Union and European Free Trade Association countries at the regional and city level in 2018-2021 and more information about the project is available on the Eurostat website in the section “Experimental Statistics”.

¹ The total number of guest nights is obtained by multiplying the nights booked by the number of persons staying in the accommodation booked.

² Data from the collaborative economy platform for the relevant period at the time of data collection in August 2021. Accommodation included in the research project – guest apartments/suites, holiday homes, country houses and other similar accommodation (category I 55.2, according to NACE Rev.2 classification). The Central Statistical Bureau, in the framework of the Eurostat grant project “New data sources and methods in tourism statistics”, performed ethical web scraping of publicly available information on the capacity of respective tourist accommodations from the global accommodation platform Booking.

³ The exact number of beds is unknown, as the published number of beds in the indicated room types is determined by automatic data acquisition.

Media requests:
Communication Section
E-mail: media@csp.gov.lv
Phone: +371 27880666

More information on the data:
Ilze Ķerus
Transport and Tourism Statistics Section
E-mail: Ilze.Kerus@csp.gov.lv
Phone: +371 67366778