The number of guest nights in Latvia booked via Booking, Airbnb, Expedia and Tripadvisor has risen by 52 % in 2022

According to the latest data resulting from cooperation project between the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) and statistical office of the European Union Eurostat, 1.1 million guest nights¹ were spent in Latvia in 2022, which were offered via one of the four collaborative economy platforms – Booking, Airbnb, Expedia and Tripadvisor. That is 52.1 % more than in 2021, when the number of guest nights comprised 700.9 thousand and 20.3 % less than in 2019 before the pandemic, when the number of guest nights reached 1.3 million.

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 data shows impact of COVID-19 – a sharp drop in March, April, at the end of the year and at the beginning of 2021, but already in the beginning of 2022 and during the season as a whole, there is an increase in the number of nights booked. Also, the CSB data published in February on the activity of Latvian hotels and accommodation establishments in 2022 showed an increase in the number of nights spent by guests by 63.2 %, compared to the previous year².

In 2022, the share of nights booked by non-resident visitors increased again – 72.9 % of guest nights, while resident visitors booked 27.1 % of nights. For comparison, in 2021 half (50.5 %) of hotel nights were booked by resident visitors and half (49.5 %) by non-resident visitors, while before the pandemic in 2019 non-resident visitors booked 87.4 % of all nights. On average, in 2022 one booking in these accommodations comprised 7 nights, of which for non-resident visitors – 8.7 nights, but for resident visitors – 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 (92.4 % of nights booked).

Comparing the three Baltic States, Lithuania had the largest number of nights booked in 2022 with 1.4 million nights, followed by Estonia (1.2 million nights) and Latvia (1.1 million nights). However, it was Latvia where the greatest number of non-resident visitors stayed – 777.5 thousand. The number of nights spent by non-resident visitors was 777 (2.2 times more than in the previous year). For comparison, in Estonia 730.2 thousand international guest nights were booked (increase of 97.9 %) and in Lithuania – 720 thousand international guest nights (rise of 85.5 %). All three Baltic States, compared to the previous year, there was a drop in the number of nights spent by resident visitors in 2022 – in Latvia by 18.4 %, in Estonia by 7.5 % and in Lithuania by 5.4 %.

In 2022, 54.4 % of all guest nights were spent in Riga, 20.2 % – in Kurzeme, 16.2 % – in Pierīga, 4.7 % – in Vidzeme, 2.9 % – in Latgale, and 1.5 % – in Zemgale. Resident visitors mostly stayed in Kurzeme (35.2 % of guest nights) and Riga (27.4 % of guest nights). Non-resident visitors mostly stayed in Riga (64.5 % of guest nights), Pierīga (15.5 % of guest nights) and Kurzeme (14.6 % of guest nights).

Data available on six largest by population cities in Latvia – Riga, Daugavpils, Liepāja, Jelgava, Jūrmala and Ventspils – show that in 2022, compared to the previous year, the number of guest nights booked by non-resident visitors has increased in all cities mentioned (the largest increase in Riga - 2.7 times and in Daugavpils – 2.4 times), but the number of nights booked by resident visitors decreased (the largest drop in Jūrmala – by 40.5 % and in Ventspils – by 25.7 %). 

In 2022, the busiest months were July and August, and these two summer months covered 37.5 % of the annual number of guest nights, while the share of January and February was the lowest – only 7.3 % of the total number of guest nights.

The majority of guest nights in Latvia were booked by visitors 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 June 2022³ around 2.7 thousand tourist accommodations of the appropriate types (apartments, guest and holiday homes, rest-houses, cottages, youth hostels, etc.) with around 21 thousand beds⁴ were offered. About 54 % 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 2018-2022 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 Press release published by the CSB on 15 February 2023 on the activity of hotels and other tourist accommodation establishments in 2022

³ Data from the collaborative economy platform for the relevant period at the time of data collection in June 2022. 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.

⁴ 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