Between November and April, 3.3 million foreign tourists visited Finland, up by 13 percent from the previous winter season.

Altogether they spent close to a billion euros in the country, the Finnish Tourist Board and Statistics Finland reported on Wednesday. The average visitor spent just over 300 euros in the country.

The 1.7 million Russian visitors accounted for more than half of all tourists last winter.

The second-largest group were Estonians, who also visited Finland in much greater numbers than a year earlier, 340,000 in all. Third were the Swedes, with some 290,000 visiting their eastern neighbour.