Nevertheless, the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) has published its annual overview of tourism for 2020, and it is now available for download.
The collection of statistics includes results of a sample survey of persons crossing the country’s border in 2020 and a survey about recreational and business trips made by residents of Latvia. Also data on the activities of hotels, other tourist accommodation establishments, tourism companies, and rural tourism accommodation establishments are included in comparison with previous years.
Perhaps the most telling figures are those about the number of hotels, guesthouses and other accommodation facilities that were actually open for business in 2020.
At the end of 2019 there were 847 hotels in Latvia, but at the end of 2020 there were just 700. Similarly the number of guesthouses declined from 507 to 460 during the same period and the number of campsites dwindled from 19 to 16.
While hotels were able to offer 13,000 beds in 2019, that number fell to 9,000 in 2020. The total number of visitors accommodated by hotels plummeted from 2,393,000 to 1,113,000.
