Aarhus soars in Scandinavia: takes top spot on Nordic leaderboard of tourism growth

Denmark’s second city, Aarhus, signals success at the half way point of 2017 as European Capital of Culture, with over 1 million visitors to Aarhus 2017 cultural events recorded by summer and data published by VisitDenmark puts the ‘City of Smiles’ in top spot for overall growth in overnight visitors not only for Denmark but among all major Nordic cities.   

At the top of the leaderboard, Aarhus achieved a five-year indexed increase of +65% overnight visitor growth by end of 2016, following a sustained growth period ahead of all four Nordic capitals and second cities.  Aarhus sits just over 20% ahead of the comparable rate versus Copenhagen, some 30% ahead of growth recorded in Oslo and Stockholm and over 55% ahead of Helsinki.  VisitAarhus recorded an increase in hotel capacity in the period of approximately +50%  meaning a net increase in demand versus supply and thus high occupancy rates in the fast-expanding port city; a further 1,000+ hotel rooms are underway and Aarhus planners recently unveiled development of a second major congress and conference centre on the city’s waterfront port area and featuring a 500+ room Scandic hotel.  The additional business tourism venue will sit alongside the so-called ‘Bay Centre’, to be Denmark’s tallest building and visitor attraction when completed in 2020.  The city’s port itself recorded significant growth in cruise traffic in 2016 and 2017 to-date, including Costa Cruises and Royal Caribbean.  Cruise passengers have increased from just over 5,000 in 2010 to an expected 100,000 in 2018.

Commenting on the growth for Aarhus Airport, Head of Airline Relations – David Surley was quick to point out that growth has been building prior to ‘Aarhus 2017’ and European Capital of Culture status: “if you look at the last 12 months”, he stated, “inbound visitor numbers from markets large and small have been on the increase, even before the opening of Aarhus 2017, this is part of an international awareness journey for Aarhus that has frankly catapulted the city onto the international stage.  We have a city that is home to fast-growing world headquartered companies, a powerhouse university, the youngest and perhaps most dynamic population base in the Nordic region and development in infrastructure that allows us to cope with high and sustainable growth, from large hotels to Europe’s largest hospital, an imminently opening light rail system and next year we host the World Sailing Championships”.

Aarhus was only recently ranked top of 168 leading European cities for its quality and governance in areas like health, education and law enforcement in an EU backed study.  Cited as Europe’s 2nd most welcoming and tolerant to foreigners among larger cities and also 2nd for its quality of tourism sights and landmarks.  Scandinavian cities ranked highly overall; Aarhus was listed 5th for intellectual property and innovation and came out top in community inclusive digital advancement by way of design applications.  “Aarhus is techy, trendy and investment-led, all at the same time”, said Surley, “visitors to this city don’t only discover tales of rich Viking history and coastal crusades, they step into a future-oriented, cosmopolitan and vastly welcoming environment.  Aarhus has been credited with having Scandinavia’s best shopping, best theatre, best festivals, two of Denmark’s top 5 visitor attractions, three of its top 5 museums, great hotels, great food, great service and evidently the best recent recent record in increasing it’s share of visitors to the Nordic region.  Our tourism sector colleagues have worked so hard to achieve this”.

Visit Denmark data shows that in the last 12 months Aarhus registered +9.3% growth in international overnight stays versus the Danish average of +2.4% and +3.4% in the capital. To-date in 2017 Aarhus has seen a +12% rise in international visitors, double the +6% increase nationally.  Visitors from the largest markets Norway and Germany rose by +8% and +40%, visitors from the UK by +22%.  The largest market increases have come from Italy at +85%, the Czech Republic and China both +70% and Canada at +53%.  Aarhus reached the 1.1 million annual visitor overnights point this year, for the first time and both VisitAarhus and Aarhus Airport expect that figure to more or less double in coming years.