No abstract

—International tourism was among the sectors of the global economy most affected by the COVID‑19 pandemic. The aim of the study is to identify the differences in the dynamics of the tourist flow in Finland and Estonia during the first eight months of 2020 compared to 2019, as well as changes in the structure of the inbound tourist flow to these countries. The particular interest in studying tourist flows in Finland and Estonia stems from the fact that over the past two decades, they were among the top ten countries in the world in terms of the volume of outbound tourism by Russians, as well as among the leaders in this indicator among European Union countries, which is directly related to their neighboring position with Russia. Tourism in Estonia and Finland went through a rather difficult period of spring quarantine, and its recovery in the summer began with domestic tourism. There has also been an increase in the inbound tourist flow. At the same time, the best dynamics was demonstrated by the flow of tourists from neighboring countries that are EU members, the border with which for tourists was already partially open in summer 2020. The adjacent territories of neighboring countries are part of cross-border tourist and recreational regions, within which tourist flows have been recovering faster than tourist exchange with other, geographically more remote states. This conclusion gives hope for a fairly quick recovery of cross-border tourist exchange between Russia and neighboring countries after the postpandemic opening of borders.

No abstract

Official statistics on inbound and international tourism in different countries due to differences in estimation methods do not give the full idea of the value of cross-border tourist flows. The purpose of the study is to find aparameter, which would allow to evaluate the value of cross-border tourist flow, as well as the level of formation of cross-border touristic-recreational regions of different scales. In the capacity of such aparameter in the article there is an annual number of crossings of the border via multi-sided vehicle checkpoints. Within the region of the research, stretching along the border of Russia with Norway, Finland, Estonia and Latvia, there are 15such checkpoints. Altogether there are four cross-border touristic-recreational meso-regions in the researched region, the level of formation of which is evaluated to be an average and above average. Still, there were three more cross-border touristic-recreational micro-regions of the first order identified, the level of formation of them is estimated to be below average and low.

Sweden’s tourism industry stands out for its large contribution to the development of the national economy. The vast size of the country makes it possible to trace differences in incoming tourist flows from neighbouring countries. This circumstance accounts for the novelty of this study, which lies in viewing national tourism geography from the perspective of the theory of transboundary tourism-and-recreation region building. Interregional differences in the structure of incoming tourist flows help identify the country’s cross-border tourism-and-recreation regions and delineate their borders. This research employs statistical and cartographic methods. The incoming tourist flow to Sweden grew steadily until 2020. However, the Covid-19 crisis has led to a drastic reduction in the number of incoming tourists. Based on the 2019 statistics, the findings confirm the existence of a developed transboundary tourism-and-recreation mesoregion that brings together Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. The formation boasts strong tourist links. There are another five cross-border tourism-and-recreation mesoregions: Sweden-Norway-Denmark, Middle Sweden-Norway, Sweden-Norway-Finland, Middle Sweden-Finland, and South Sweden-Finland. The number of tourists visiting cross-border mesoregions indicates the degree of development of the latter.

No abstract

Nowadays international tourism is among the sectors of the world economy most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study is to identify differences in the dynamics of tourist flow in Finland and Estonia during the first eight months of 2020 compared to 2019, as well as changes in the structure of incoming tourist flow to these countries. Particular interest in studying the tourist flows of Finland and Estonia is due to the fact that over the past two decades they have been among the top ten countries in the world in terms of outbound tourism of Russians, as well as among the leaders in this indicator among the EU States, which is directly related to their neighboring position with Russia. Tourism in Estonia and Finland experienced a rather difficult period of spring quarantine, and its recovery in the summer began with domestic tourism. There has also been an increase in the incoming tourist flow. At the same time, the best dynamics were demonstrated by the tourist flow from neighboring countries of the European Union, the border with which was partially opened for tourists in the summer of 2020. Adjacent territories of neighboring countries are the part of the cross-border tourist and recreational regions, within which tourist flows were restored faster than tourist exchange with other, geographically more remote States. This conclusion gives hope for a fairly rapid recovery of cross-border tourist exchange between Russia and neighboring countries after the “opening” of borders at the end of the pandemic.

Portugal was in the group of European countries in which the volume of inbound tourist flow collapsed most significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the reasons for this was the presence of only one land neighbor of the country — Spain, which at the same time is not even the leader in the number of overnight stays of foreign tourists in Portugal. This determines the relevance of studying the structure of the incoming tourist flow and the geographical features of the distribution of tourists from different countries in Portugal. The novelty of the study is determined by the use in the course of the analysis of the tourist attraction index, calculated as the ratio of the number of tourists arriving from a certain country and the size of its population. Together with Spain, the leading group in terms of tourist flow to Portugal includes such countries as Great Britain, France and Germany. They are slightly inferior to Brazil and the United States. As a result of the study, four main models of the distribution of tourist flow across the country were identified: Spanish (neighboring), British (strong resort-oriented), German (weak resort-oriented) and Brazilian (“distant relative”). Thanks to the calculation of the tourist attraction index, it was possible to identify small countries for which travel to Portugal is significant, although they occupy a small share in the structure of the incoming tourist flow due to their small population. These are countries such as Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Malta and Finland. At the same time, Brazil and the United States are only in the third and fourth ten countries according to the rating in accordance with the value of the tourist attraction index.