Tourism boom blooms further in January 2018

The tourism boom in Finnish Lapland and its de facto capital Rovaniemi has continued to climb even higher as is reflected in a significant growth in the number of tourists’ overnight stays at the accommodation facilities of Rovaniemi in January last.

The number of tourists’ overnight stays in the month posted an eight per cent rise from that of January 2017, said Visit Rovaniemi, a short name for the tourism board of the Rovaniemi region which promotes and helps develop tourism in Rovaniemi.

In January 2018, tourists made 76,700 overnight stays in total at Rovaniemi’s accommodation facilities, with the Finns accounting for a (-) 13 per cent drop year on year and the foreigners a 13 per cent hike from that in 12 months ago with a total of 64,400 overnight stays.

According to a Visit Rovaniemi report, the largest group of foreign visitors came from Russia who made 8,900 overnight stays, followed by those hailing from China and making 8,400 overnight stays, from France making 7,700 stays, from Germany accounting for 4,000 stays, and from the United Kingdom with a share of 3700 overnight stays.

“Tourism here has been developing in a smooth way and the entire winter season of 2018-2019 is growing at about the same rate as in the same season in 2017,” said Visit Rovaniemi Managing Director Sanna Kärkkäinen during an interview with the Daily Finland, adding, “we expect the same growth for this winter season.”

Kärkkäinen said one of the key reasons for such a mushrooming of tourism here is the great connectivity that Rovaniemi and Lapland can offer these days. She said, “The digital marketing and the social media also influence visits to Lapland by promoting the visibility of Rovaniemi to a great extent.” Kärkkäinen, however, pointed out that there is still a dearth of exclusive tourist accommodation facilities, which, she said, is also a very important driver for attracting tourists.

The Visit Rovaniemi chief executive also mentioned that spring and summer are still something to focus on to facilitate and speed up further development of tourism in the North. In her words, “We need to develop tourism into a business round the year in order to get more returns from the sector and to gain a larger and permanent workforce in the area.”

Kärkkäinen also termed direct flights a key asset for developing international tourism in the area. Flight connections are considered a direct marketing tool and, together with digital marketing, they create a great combination for effective destination marketing and direct links for buying the services as well.

In January 2018, the Rovaniemi Airport received a total of 33,600 passengers, 21.5 per cent of whom came with direct flights from abroad and 78.5 per cent with domestic flights. Foreign travellers also arrive in Rovaniemi with domestic flights via the Helsinki Airport. In total, the number of arrivals in the first month of this year increased 12 per cent year on year, said Statistics Finland, Global Blue, and Finavia that operates the country’s airports.