Overnight stays in Longyearbyen

Last updated 18 September 2024

The number of overnight stays in public accommodation in Longyearbyen in the course of a year gives an indication of what impact the natural environment and cultural sites and monuments in Longyearbyen and its vicinity (day trip areas) may be exposed to. There will also be a link between the number of overnight stays and the scale of sightseeing excursions, organised trips and non-organised outdoor recreation using Longyearbyen as a base.

Status and trend

There was a steady increase of overnight stays during the years 2003-2008, and a preliminary peak in 2008 reached 92,000 overnight stays. After a decrease the following four years, a substantial increase started in 2013. This trend has continued, and in 2019 there were record high 166,801 overnight stays in total. The low numbers in 2020 and 2021 are due to the coronavirus pandemic. The numbers in 2022 and 2023 are slightly lower than in the previous normal year of 2019.

The largest increase of overnight stays is linked to the holiday and leisure market. In this segment, the number of overnight stays has more than doubled during the past nine years, from 65,358 in 2013 to 134,394 in 2022. The number of people attending courses/conferences increased seven-fold through to 2018 compared with 1995, with a peak year in 2017. However, this number fell by 68% from 2018 to 2022. Since 2005, numbers of overnight stays associated with business trips have gradually decreased, with an exception in 2018 when there was a lot of building activities in Longyearbyen. In 2022 only 1694 overnight stays were associated with business trips, which is the lowest number registered since 1995 (disregarding the numbers from the coronavirus pandemic year 2020).

The measures linked to the coronavirus pandemic substantially reduced the number of overnight stays from March 2020 onwards. For a while, virtually no visitors came to Svalbard. The majority of overnight stays this year occurred in January and February, before the pandemic struck, as well as from early June 2020 through much of the summer. Nevertheless, the figures for overnight stays were also low during this period due to the cancellation of many organised trips. The overall decrease from 2019 to 2020 was 59%. In terms of percentages, the decrease was greatest amongst travellers in the course/conference segments and professional travellers, which saw decreases of 78% and 88% respectively. Nevertheless, the largest decrease occurred in the holiday and leisure segment, which recorded more than 80,000 fewer overnight guests than the previous year.

Causal factors

Many factors will influence the number of overnight stays in Longyearbyen. It is assumed that the single most important factor is the number of flights between the mainland and Longyearbyen. The expansion of accommodation in Longyearbyen also had a great deal to say, but marketing, excursion offers and the economic situation for firms and private customers have also affected the trend. The efforts of the tourism industry in Svalbard to promote the Polar night have borne fruit in the form of more guests and a higher occupancy rate at this time of year, from October to February.

In 2013, the airliner Norwegian resumed non-stop flights from Oslo, which have a great deal to say for the number of overnight stays. The financial crisis in Europe in 2008–2009 probably had an effect on the holiday and leisure category. In 2023, the cost of living in Norway affected the number of Norwegian tourists in Svalbard correspondingly.

For courses and conferences, there was a marked decline in the number of overnight stays in 2019 and following years. The costs of flights and accommodation in Longyearbyen may have contributed to this.

As regards journeys connected with work and business, the financial situation for firms has some effect, but also the scale of construction and commercial activities in Longyearbyen. Major new developments in the last 15–20 years also have affected the number of overnight stays since quite a few of the construction workers stayed at hotels. Work due to landslides, relocation and  construction of new houses has had an impact in recent years.

The number of overnight stays has risen considerably in recent years, due to the opening of several new accommodation facilities. Accommodation capacity in Longyearbyen as of March 2024 is stated to be 488 rooms, with a total bed capacity of 1029.

Consequences

The number of overnight stays in Longyearbyen is obviously decisive for the firms offering overnight accommodation, but it also has spin-off benefits for the rest of the business community:

• shops of all types
• operators who sell excursions of varying duration
• transport industry
• hospitality industry
• museums
• galleries
• etc.

Depending on what the overnight guests do, they may impact the natural environment. Everyone who visits Svalbard arrives by plane or ship. More traffic will mean higher discharges of greenhouse gases.

About the monitoring

It is essential to monitor the number of overnight stays in Longyearbyen as this gives an indication of the expected effect on the environment and cultural heritage sites and monuments in Longyearbyen and its close vicinity (areas available for day-trips).

Together with other monitoring series on the actual effects of activities, it is possible to establish the causation of human effects on the environment in Longyearbyen and its surroundings.