In the crowd on Stortorget in Gamla stan in Stockholm, a murmur of French, Chinese, English, and Japanese is mixed. The tour leader Fujta Miko tries stressed to push her tourist group from Japan through the entrance to the Nobel Prize Museum in Börshuset, while Pavel and Marketa Sebesta watch them lazily from the shade by a café.
Yes, it has been a bit windy and rainy, says Pavel Sebesta diplomatically, but we enjoy being here.
Japanese stand out
Sweden and Stockholm have become an increasingly popular tourist destination, if one looks at the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth's statistics on the total number of guest nights in the country over the past six months compared to the same period last year.
Even specifically in Stockholm, tourism has increased, especially from Japan. Among them, the number of guest nights in the capital has increased by as much as 78 percent, according to Aron Abrahamsson, communicator at Stockholm Business Region, who sees the new direct flight route between Tokyo and Stockholm as the given reason.
Stockholm and Sweden are a bit "indie" as a tourist destination compared to more exploited, tourist-dense cities in Europe, he says to TT.
Nao Kinoshita, 28, from Nagano in Japan, who strolls in the crowd on Västerlånggatan, has been attracted to Sweden for a special reason: Stockholm's architecture is said to have been a model for the city in the film Kiki's Delivery Service by filmmaker Hayo Miyazaki, she tells.
"Not too exploited"
A French family passing the sun-drenched square is used to a more pressing heat in their hometown of Marseille. But it is not the cooler climate that makes them appreciate Sweden as a travel destination.
It's nature, says Aloys Henry, and adds that Sweden and Stockholm are not yet too exploited by tourists, like Barcelona, for example.
Here, normal life remains, not just tourists, he says.
A rage against mass tourism in popular tourist destinations such as Venice and Mallorca has in recent years been expressed in demonstrations among the local population, who blame growing tourist streams for inflated rents and city centers depleted of anything but souvenir shops. Similar protests have not yet gained momentum in Sweden.
Is there a risk that tourism will grow to a pain threshold that triggers protests here as well?
No, but ask again in 30 years, is the answer from Aron Abrahamsson.
The number of hotel nights per inhabitant is almost ten times higher in, for example, Barcelona than in Stockholm, and here the increase is slow, he emphasizes and adds:
So far, there is plenty of room for tourists.
The number of rented hotel rooms in Sweden increased in June by just over eight percent compared to the same month last year, according to statistics from the industry organization Visita.
The total number of guest nights in Sweden for the period between January 2025 and May 2025 has increased by 387,519 compared to the same period the previous year. This corresponds to an increase of 1.7 percent.
The number of guest nights where the guests were Swedes increased by 2.5 percent, while the number of foreign guest nights increased by 5.6 percent during the period.
The total number of guest nights for the period was 23.3 million.
For the summer of 2025, the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth's statistics have not yet been compiled.
Sources: The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, Visita, and Stockholm Business Region AB.
