The Development of Pärnu Resort
By Tiit Kask Pärnu 2008 The Story of a Baroque Fortress Town Pärnu was transferred to the Swedes in 1617. The building of fortresses began in the area of Estonia and Latvia as defensive sites against a strengthening Russia, which was attempting to expand to the Baltic Sea. Therefore, construction began on fortification works in Pärnu in the 1670s, modelled on examples from Western Europe such as those in France and the Netherlands. The town is located on flat land and was surrounded by a heptagonal belt of bastions and a wide and deep moat. By the end of the 17th century, Pärnu had become the most contemporary baroque fortress in Livonia. |
As a result of the Great Northern War (1700–1721), Russia took over the areas of both Estonia and Livonia. The Swedish garrison surrendered Pärnu to the Russian armed forces in 1710. The building of fortifications was continued during the post-war period – according to the sources available – and involved the renovation and updating of the existing facilities and the completion of structures begun by the Swedes.
In 1835, Pärnu was removed from the list of fortifications of the Russian Empire. Once again, the town was free of restrictions (that is, interference coming from the representatives of military authority) and run by the Town Magistrate. Tsar Nicholas I gave the fortification belt and the accompanying buildings to the town while the Town Magistrate of Pärnu leased the majority of the former military buildings to enterprising town citizens.
Pärnu was to be hurled into the era of change and innovation. This era turned the closed fortress town into an open seaside resort, ‘bathing in greenery’ and characterised by numerous parks, shady boulevards and elegant architecture.
The Story of the First Bathing Establishment
1838-1888
In 1837, a petition was filed with the Magistrate of Pärnu for the building of a bathing institution, and, in June 1838, the resort was opened for its first guests. Heated seawater baths and sea bathing opportunities were offered in summer while the establishment operated a sauna in winter. The operations of the private Bathing Establishment, having launched its business with such gusto, remained rather modest during the next decades. Nevertheless, the first bathing institution had a considerable effect on, above all, the development of both Pärnu resort and the town as a whole.
In 1860, the dismantling of earthen fortifications and the filling of moats began in Pärnu, resulting in the development of a green belt of parks and alleys around Pärnu downtown by the end of the 19th century.
In 1879, Mr. Oskar Alexander Brackmann (1841-1927) was elected Mayor of Pärnu (1879-1916/18) and a new era began in the development of both the town and resort of Pärnu. The town government became more focused on town planning, organisation and the holiday business.
In 1882, work began on the Beach Park (Rannapark). During the following decades a beautiful, free-shaped natural park was designed around the alley to the Bathing Establishment (Supeluse Street) and Rannasalong and Kuursaal, built in its vicinity.
The number of guests that visited the resort of Pärnu remained rather modest until the end of the 1880s, mostly as a result of economic instability, poor connection roads, a lack of publicity, and insufficient experience with the organisation of bathing. The Bathing Establishment experienced ongoing economic problems and was only able to stay in business due to donations from the trading office of Mr. H. Schmidt.
Nevertheless, the first bathing institution had a considerable effect on, above all, the development of both Pärnu resort and the town as a whole.
Story of the Making of the Resort
1898-1915
In 1889, the town government decided to introduce some new guidelines for the organisation of the holiday areas and for the development of the resort. The development trends and principles of Pärnu health resort were thus instituted. The Resort or Bathing Committee was established for the fast and efficient achievement of the objectives, completed by the creation of the position of a paid holiday manager or bathing inspector.
Upon request from the town, the Park Director of Riga devised a park and boulevard development plan for Pärnu. The Sea Boulevard was designed, Rannapark (Beach Park) was expanded to provide space for sports fields, a velodrome, playing areas for children, arbours and villas. Pärnu was a small town, but features characteristic of a city were adopted for landscaping purposes and the establishment of parks.
In 1890, Pärnu made its way to the list of Russian imperial resorts. In 1891, an entertainment centre – the Rannasalong or Kuursaal (Beach Salon or Resort Hall), which became the central entertainment venue in Pärnu – was established.
In 1896, a narrow-gauge railway between Pärnu and Valga was officially opened, followed by a Pärnu-Mõisaküla-Viljandi-Tallinn rail connection in 1901. This contributed to a rapid rise in the amount of summer holiday guests and a consequent increase in the utilisation of healing and bathing services.
The most successful pre-war bathing season was in 1908, when Pärnu accommodated approximately 2,500 summer guests. After this time, the number of summer guests began to drop. In 1911, only 1,700 summer guests found their way to Pärnu; by 1914, the number had dropped to 1,100.
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 also put an end to the business of Pärnu resort in the summer of 1915. One of the largest and most contemporary healing mud and bathing establishments suffered severe damages during the war and was completely destroyed in a fire that broke out in the autumn of 1915.
The Story of the Formal Representative Resort of the Republic of Estonia 1918-1940
Pärnu had to start the construction of the resort anew during the first period of Estonian independence – but under completely different political and economic conditions. The first years were difficult and inconsistent for the resort; nevertheless, the holiday business soon began to boom.
In 1924, Oskar Kask began his period of office as the Mayor of Pärnu (1924 – 1937). Under his initiative, the resort, once again, became one of the key elements that shaped the development and reputation of the town of Pärnu.
In 1925, the borders of the bathing and holiday area of the town of Pärnu were determined, which, supplemented by the additions of 1935, largely coincide with the boundary of the resort today.
In July 1927, the new mud baths were officially opened. The number of guests that visited Pärnu in the summer rocketed from 700 people in 1920 to 2,500 people in 1927. The majority of the foreign visitors came from Finland.
In 1928, a Pärnu-Eidapere-Lelle rail connection was opened. This was very important for the development of the resort – instead of the former 14 hours, it now only took 4 hours to travel from Tallinn to Pärnu.
In the 1930s, supported by President Konstantin Päts and the town architect, Olev Siinmaa, Pärnu became a modern resort, characterised by buildings in the functionalist style. The treatment and holiday alternatives were more and more widely acknowledged at an international level.
From 1934, Swedes began to dominate the population of foreigners frequenting Pärnu, closely followed by summer guests from Finland, Latvia and Germany. In 1937, a shipping line between Stockholm and Pärnu was launched; in summer 1939, two steamboats travelled this line twice a week.
Rannahotell (Beach Hotel) was opened in 1937, Suursild (Great Bridge) over River Pärnu and hotel-pension Vasa in 1938, and in 1939 – for the anniversary of the resort – an imposing Rannakohvik (Beach Café) were built. In the summer of 1939, more than 8,000 summer guests, 60% from abroad, had made their way to Pärnu.
The town was in the process of devising new development trends for the holiday area, but the outbreak of World War II and the accompanying political turmoil interrupted the development of the resort.
War-Time Resort
1940-1944
As a result of the turmoil in the summer of 1940, the management of the Pärnu resort was transferred to the ‘executive body of working people’ – the Central Council of the All-Union Trade Unions. On 7th July, the first guests arrived at the holiday home that was opened at Rannahotell – approximately 100 labour veterans. During the holiday season that lasted until 29th September, approximately 1,144 labour veterans from all over Estonia spent their holidays there. It was intended to use the enterprises, once belonging to the town, to open new holiday homes and medical establishments for the working class.
In the summer of 1941, the assets of Pärnu resorts – their administration and management – were transferred to the Resort Board of the Central Union of Estonian Professional Bodies, established by German occupational authorities. The activities of the sanatoria and nursing homes, operating since 1940, were terminated and all the resort enterprises were converged into one uniform establishment.
In May 1942, both Rannakohvik and the Bathing Establishment opened their doors for the summer season. In spite of the war situation, this season was characterised by hordes of visitors. The Bathing Establishment had an outstandingly busy season – in 4 months, 21,100 different healing baths were given, 17,780 to civilians.
In 1943, the Resort Board consisted of 7 enterprises – Rannahotell, the Bathing Establishment, the Ranna café, Grand Hotel, rented apartment houses, an accommodation service for special purposes and a workshop/garden nursery. At the formal opening of the 105th season of the Pärnu resort, it was admitted that the premier function of the resort for that season was to provide services to front-line soldiers, who came there for vacation and treatment.
Once occupied again by the Soviet Union, Pärnu resort began its post-war activities in November 1944. The resort enterprises, which had operated during the previous occupation, were used to open a nursing home for the treatment and recreation of 150 war veterans; another nursing home for 200 veterans was opened by the end of the same year.
The Story of the Sanatoria-type Healing Resort of the Soviet period
1945-1990
In 1945, the planning and building of a new network of sanatoria and nursing homes was started. Pärnu was to become one of the most important treatment and holiday sites for the workers of both Estonia and the other Soviet republics. First of all, large-scale cleaning and maintenance works were to be performed in the town. Downtown, two thirds of which had been damaged, beach parks, green areas and multiple streets and boulevards were waiting to be restored.
In 1946-48, Pärnu became into an ‘All-Union’ sanatoria resort that operated around the year. Being made subject to the Soviet management procedure, which was launched with a zest, the number of patients being treated increased rapidly. While in 1948, 6,300 patients were treated in Pärnu, this figure had rocketed to 14,000 by 1962. Construction activities also gathered speed – new large-scale accommodation and treatment facilities for the sanatoria were built into the resort area.
In 1957, the Resort Studies Department of the Experimental and Clinical Medicine Institute was opened in Pärnu. By the 1960s, Pärnu had become the largest therapeutic resort and the centre of research conducted in the sphere of resorts.
The expansion of the resort continued into the 1970 and 1980s. In 1971, the first stage of the Tervis resort was opened; the premises of the existing resorts were also modernised and expanded.
In the middle of the 1980s, the sanatoria in Pärnu admitted approximately 25,000 patients for treatments each year. Together with holiday-makers, accommodated by departmental boarding, nursing homes and private houses, approximately 300,000 tourists visited Pärnu each year.
In 1988, the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the resort of Pärnu was celebrated. Regardless of the positive achievements highlighted in the speeches and brochures about the anniversary, the Soviet resort system was being exhausted in both an economic and organisational sense.
The Story of the Holiday Town of the Soviet Period
1944-1990
In the 1950s, Pärnu, once again, become a popular summer holiday resort. The pre-war resort heritage – numerous parks and green areas, attractive bathing architecture and beach areas and a diversified, high-level choice of cultural events in summer – preserved Pärnu’s resort town atmosphere even under the Soviet political and economic conditions.
“Unorganised” holiday-makers or people arriving to Pärnu for a vacation on their own were mostly accommodated in premises rented by the local population and therefore, there’s no statistical information available regarding the number of visitors who frequented Pärnu during the Soviet period. It is estimated that the number of Pärnu’s ‘inhabitants’ increased two- or three-fold during the summer.
Pärnu used to be the summer home for numerous representatives of the Russian intelligence. One of the most outstanding violin players of the 20th century, David Oistrahh, while spending his holidays in Pärnu in 1954-71, said: “I love Pärnu with all my heart. I feel like breathing more freely when staying here.”
In the “Two questions to a Guest” column of the Pärnu Kommunist newspaper (1987), the poet and translator Aleksandr Judahhin, when asked – Why did you insist on having a photograph of you and your son published by the newspaper? answered as follows: “Because in 1882 – as we learnt when browsing the family archive of pictures – his great-grandfather Konstantin Siegel went to Pärnu for holidays. Therefore, my son Ivan is the fifth generation to spend a vacation in Pärnu. This means that his ‘Pärnu roots’ are 105 years old.”
The Story of Estonia’s Summer Capital
1991-
As in the 1890s and 1920s, the Town Government had to assure the continuance of the traditions of Pärnu as a resort and holiday town in the 1990s. Inevitably, once again (as in the 1920s), focus had to be given to the ‘new’ nearest foreign markets – Finland, Sweden, Latvia, etc. The key issue was the restitution of the assets of Pärnu resort. The town was only restituted the resorts’ assets in 1994 following long negotiations.
Due to the lack of a centralised management and administrative system, the future of the resort establishment was largely dependent on their management’s initiative and ability to point out the potential problems and to operate under changing conditions. The first trendsetter under new conditions was the privatised AS Sanatoorium Tervis (1992). In August of 1993, AS Taastusravikeskus Viiking opened its doors to visitors. AS Taastusravikeskus Estonia (1995), AS Taastusravikeskus Sõprus (1995) and AS Pärnu Mudaravila, continuing their business as municipal property, were able to tune in, step by step, with the rapid changes that characterised the transition period.
Pärnu restored its position as the most popular resort in Estonia and in June 1996, Pärnu was, once again, declared the Summer Capital of Estonia. In 1996-98, rehabilitation enterprises operating in Pärnu made up 65-70% of Estonia’s therapeutic resort potential. 60% of patients in rehabilitation institutions stayed in Pärnu while 85% of all the foreign guests were treated in Pärnu.
The survey of Pärnu’s summer guests, organised since 1995, shows a steady increase of foreign guests from an ever-expanding variety of countries. In 1995-2000, the respective numbers went from 44,000 (1995) to 105,000 (in 2000) while in 2007, approximately 200,000 foreign guests visited Pärnu. Visitors and tourists from Finland, Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, etc. are dominant among the guests.
Pärnu Summer Capital has become one of the most visited holiday and therapeutic resorts in Estonia.
In 1835, Pärnu was removed from the list of fortifications of the Russian Empire. Once again, the town was free of restrictions (that is, interference coming from the representatives of military authority) and run by the Town Magistrate. Tsar Nicholas I gave the fortification belt and the accompanying buildings to the town while the Town Magistrate of Pärnu leased the majority of the former military buildings to enterprising town citizens.
Pärnu was to be hurled into the era of change and innovation. This era turned the closed fortress town into an open seaside resort, ‘bathing in greenery’ and characterised by numerous parks, shady boulevards and elegant architecture.
The Story of the First Bathing Establishment
1838-1888
In 1837, a petition was filed with the Magistrate of Pärnu for the building of a bathing institution, and, in June 1838, the resort was opened for its first guests. Heated seawater baths and sea bathing opportunities were offered in summer while the establishment operated a sauna in winter. The operations of the private Bathing Establishment, having launched its business with such gusto, remained rather modest during the next decades. Nevertheless, the first bathing institution had a considerable effect on, above all, the development of both Pärnu resort and the town as a whole.
In 1860, the dismantling of earthen fortifications and the filling of moats began in Pärnu, resulting in the development of a green belt of parks and alleys around Pärnu downtown by the end of the 19th century.
In 1879, Mr. Oskar Alexander Brackmann (1841-1927) was elected Mayor of Pärnu (1879-1916/18) and a new era began in the development of both the town and resort of Pärnu. The town government became more focused on town planning, organisation and the holiday business.
In 1882, work began on the Beach Park (Rannapark). During the following decades a beautiful, free-shaped natural park was designed around the alley to the Bathing Establishment (Supeluse Street) and Rannasalong and Kuursaal, built in its vicinity.
The number of guests that visited the resort of Pärnu remained rather modest until the end of the 1880s, mostly as a result of economic instability, poor connection roads, a lack of publicity, and insufficient experience with the organisation of bathing. The Bathing Establishment experienced ongoing economic problems and was only able to stay in business due to donations from the trading office of Mr. H. Schmidt.
Nevertheless, the first bathing institution had a considerable effect on, above all, the development of both Pärnu resort and the town as a whole.
Story of the Making of the Resort
1898-1915
In 1889, the town government decided to introduce some new guidelines for the organisation of the holiday areas and for the development of the resort. The development trends and principles of Pärnu health resort were thus instituted. The Resort or Bathing Committee was established for the fast and efficient achievement of the objectives, completed by the creation of the position of a paid holiday manager or bathing inspector.
Upon request from the town, the Park Director of Riga devised a park and boulevard development plan for Pärnu. The Sea Boulevard was designed, Rannapark (Beach Park) was expanded to provide space for sports fields, a velodrome, playing areas for children, arbours and villas. Pärnu was a small town, but features characteristic of a city were adopted for landscaping purposes and the establishment of parks.
In 1890, Pärnu made its way to the list of Russian imperial resorts. In 1891, an entertainment centre – the Rannasalong or Kuursaal (Beach Salon or Resort Hall), which became the central entertainment venue in Pärnu – was established.
In 1896, a narrow-gauge railway between Pärnu and Valga was officially opened, followed by a Pärnu-Mõisaküla-Viljandi-Tallinn rail connection in 1901. This contributed to a rapid rise in the amount of summer holiday guests and a consequent increase in the utilisation of healing and bathing services.
The most successful pre-war bathing season was in 1908, when Pärnu accommodated approximately 2,500 summer guests. After this time, the number of summer guests began to drop. In 1911, only 1,700 summer guests found their way to Pärnu; by 1914, the number had dropped to 1,100.
The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 also put an end to the business of Pärnu resort in the summer of 1915. One of the largest and most contemporary healing mud and bathing establishments suffered severe damages during the war and was completely destroyed in a fire that broke out in the autumn of 1915.
The Story of the Formal Representative Resort of the Republic of Estonia 1918-1940
Pärnu had to start the construction of the resort anew during the first period of Estonian independence – but under completely different political and economic conditions. The first years were difficult and inconsistent for the resort; nevertheless, the holiday business soon began to boom.
In 1924, Oskar Kask began his period of office as the Mayor of Pärnu (1924 – 1937). Under his initiative, the resort, once again, became one of the key elements that shaped the development and reputation of the town of Pärnu.
In 1925, the borders of the bathing and holiday area of the town of Pärnu were determined, which, supplemented by the additions of 1935, largely coincide with the boundary of the resort today.
In July 1927, the new mud baths were officially opened. The number of guests that visited Pärnu in the summer rocketed from 700 people in 1920 to 2,500 people in 1927. The majority of the foreign visitors came from Finland.
In 1928, a Pärnu-Eidapere-Lelle rail connection was opened. This was very important for the development of the resort – instead of the former 14 hours, it now only took 4 hours to travel from Tallinn to Pärnu.
In the 1930s, supported by President Konstantin Päts and the town architect, Olev Siinmaa, Pärnu became a modern resort, characterised by buildings in the functionalist style. The treatment and holiday alternatives were more and more widely acknowledged at an international level.
From 1934, Swedes began to dominate the population of foreigners frequenting Pärnu, closely followed by summer guests from Finland, Latvia and Germany. In 1937, a shipping line between Stockholm and Pärnu was launched; in summer 1939, two steamboats travelled this line twice a week.
Rannahotell (Beach Hotel) was opened in 1937, Suursild (Great Bridge) over River Pärnu and hotel-pension Vasa in 1938, and in 1939 – for the anniversary of the resort – an imposing Rannakohvik (Beach Café) were built. In the summer of 1939, more than 8,000 summer guests, 60% from abroad, had made their way to Pärnu.
The town was in the process of devising new development trends for the holiday area, but the outbreak of World War II and the accompanying political turmoil interrupted the development of the resort.
War-Time Resort
1940-1944
As a result of the turmoil in the summer of 1940, the management of the Pärnu resort was transferred to the ‘executive body of working people’ – the Central Council of the All-Union Trade Unions. On 7th July, the first guests arrived at the holiday home that was opened at Rannahotell – approximately 100 labour veterans. During the holiday season that lasted until 29th September, approximately 1,144 labour veterans from all over Estonia spent their holidays there. It was intended to use the enterprises, once belonging to the town, to open new holiday homes and medical establishments for the working class.
In the summer of 1941, the assets of Pärnu resorts – their administration and management – were transferred to the Resort Board of the Central Union of Estonian Professional Bodies, established by German occupational authorities. The activities of the sanatoria and nursing homes, operating since 1940, were terminated and all the resort enterprises were converged into one uniform establishment.
In May 1942, both Rannakohvik and the Bathing Establishment opened their doors for the summer season. In spite of the war situation, this season was characterised by hordes of visitors. The Bathing Establishment had an outstandingly busy season – in 4 months, 21,100 different healing baths were given, 17,780 to civilians.
In 1943, the Resort Board consisted of 7 enterprises – Rannahotell, the Bathing Establishment, the Ranna café, Grand Hotel, rented apartment houses, an accommodation service for special purposes and a workshop/garden nursery. At the formal opening of the 105th season of the Pärnu resort, it was admitted that the premier function of the resort for that season was to provide services to front-line soldiers, who came there for vacation and treatment.
Once occupied again by the Soviet Union, Pärnu resort began its post-war activities in November 1944. The resort enterprises, which had operated during the previous occupation, were used to open a nursing home for the treatment and recreation of 150 war veterans; another nursing home for 200 veterans was opened by the end of the same year.
The Story of the Sanatoria-type Healing Resort of the Soviet period
1945-1990
In 1945, the planning and building of a new network of sanatoria and nursing homes was started. Pärnu was to become one of the most important treatment and holiday sites for the workers of both Estonia and the other Soviet republics. First of all, large-scale cleaning and maintenance works were to be performed in the town. Downtown, two thirds of which had been damaged, beach parks, green areas and multiple streets and boulevards were waiting to be restored.
In 1946-48, Pärnu became into an ‘All-Union’ sanatoria resort that operated around the year. Being made subject to the Soviet management procedure, which was launched with a zest, the number of patients being treated increased rapidly. While in 1948, 6,300 patients were treated in Pärnu, this figure had rocketed to 14,000 by 1962. Construction activities also gathered speed – new large-scale accommodation and treatment facilities for the sanatoria were built into the resort area.
In 1957, the Resort Studies Department of the Experimental and Clinical Medicine Institute was opened in Pärnu. By the 1960s, Pärnu had become the largest therapeutic resort and the centre of research conducted in the sphere of resorts.
The expansion of the resort continued into the 1970 and 1980s. In 1971, the first stage of the Tervis resort was opened; the premises of the existing resorts were also modernised and expanded.
In the middle of the 1980s, the sanatoria in Pärnu admitted approximately 25,000 patients for treatments each year. Together with holiday-makers, accommodated by departmental boarding, nursing homes and private houses, approximately 300,000 tourists visited Pärnu each year.
In 1988, the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the resort of Pärnu was celebrated. Regardless of the positive achievements highlighted in the speeches and brochures about the anniversary, the Soviet resort system was being exhausted in both an economic and organisational sense.
The Story of the Holiday Town of the Soviet Period
1944-1990
In the 1950s, Pärnu, once again, become a popular summer holiday resort. The pre-war resort heritage – numerous parks and green areas, attractive bathing architecture and beach areas and a diversified, high-level choice of cultural events in summer – preserved Pärnu’s resort town atmosphere even under the Soviet political and economic conditions.
“Unorganised” holiday-makers or people arriving to Pärnu for a vacation on their own were mostly accommodated in premises rented by the local population and therefore, there’s no statistical information available regarding the number of visitors who frequented Pärnu during the Soviet period. It is estimated that the number of Pärnu’s ‘inhabitants’ increased two- or three-fold during the summer.
Pärnu used to be the summer home for numerous representatives of the Russian intelligence. One of the most outstanding violin players of the 20th century, David Oistrahh, while spending his holidays in Pärnu in 1954-71, said: “I love Pärnu with all my heart. I feel like breathing more freely when staying here.”
In the “Two questions to a Guest” column of the Pärnu Kommunist newspaper (1987), the poet and translator Aleksandr Judahhin, when asked – Why did you insist on having a photograph of you and your son published by the newspaper? answered as follows: “Because in 1882 – as we learnt when browsing the family archive of pictures – his great-grandfather Konstantin Siegel went to Pärnu for holidays. Therefore, my son Ivan is the fifth generation to spend a vacation in Pärnu. This means that his ‘Pärnu roots’ are 105 years old.”
The Story of Estonia’s Summer Capital
1991-
As in the 1890s and 1920s, the Town Government had to assure the continuance of the traditions of Pärnu as a resort and holiday town in the 1990s. Inevitably, once again (as in the 1920s), focus had to be given to the ‘new’ nearest foreign markets – Finland, Sweden, Latvia, etc. The key issue was the restitution of the assets of Pärnu resort. The town was only restituted the resorts’ assets in 1994 following long negotiations.
Due to the lack of a centralised management and administrative system, the future of the resort establishment was largely dependent on their management’s initiative and ability to point out the potential problems and to operate under changing conditions. The first trendsetter under new conditions was the privatised AS Sanatoorium Tervis (1992). In August of 1993, AS Taastusravikeskus Viiking opened its doors to visitors. AS Taastusravikeskus Estonia (1995), AS Taastusravikeskus Sõprus (1995) and AS Pärnu Mudaravila, continuing their business as municipal property, were able to tune in, step by step, with the rapid changes that characterised the transition period.
Pärnu restored its position as the most popular resort in Estonia and in June 1996, Pärnu was, once again, declared the Summer Capital of Estonia. In 1996-98, rehabilitation enterprises operating in Pärnu made up 65-70% of Estonia’s therapeutic resort potential. 60% of patients in rehabilitation institutions stayed in Pärnu while 85% of all the foreign guests were treated in Pärnu.
The survey of Pärnu’s summer guests, organised since 1995, shows a steady increase of foreign guests from an ever-expanding variety of countries. In 1995-2000, the respective numbers went from 44,000 (1995) to 105,000 (in 2000) while in 2007, approximately 200,000 foreign guests visited Pärnu. Visitors and tourists from Finland, Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, etc. are dominant among the guests.
Pärnu Summer Capital has become one of the most visited holiday and therapeutic resorts in Estonia.