People walked in the cool and rainy old town of Porvoo on 3 July 2024. A Visit Finland expert told YLE in June that Finland could see a roughly 10-per-cent increase in inbound summer tourism in 2024. (Roni Rekomaa – Lehtikuva)
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SOME 1.8 million foreign visitors are expected to make a summer trip to Finland in 2024, reports YLE.
Katarina Wakonen from Visit Finland estimated in an interview with the public broadcasting company last month that the number of foreign visitors will increase by about 10 per cent from last summer. The visitors, she added, are expected to spend around 1.4 billion euros on accommodation, restaurant, cultural and experience services between June and August.
The average foreign visitor spends five to seven nights in Finland.
The country, though, accounts for only about seven per cent of tourism flows to the Nordics, according to Wakonen. “There’s room for summer tourism to grow,” she said.
While the competition for foreign visitors is intense, she pointed out that international travel companies are constantly looking for new destinations. Finland could increase its share of the pie by leaning more on the appeal of the midnight sun and relatively cool summer weather.
Heinola, a roughly 18,000-resident town located some 20 kilometres north-east of Lahti, was listed as one of the best “heatwave-proof” holiday destinations in June by The Times.
Also Helsinki has noticed the appeal of lower temperatures.
“Already last summer we had several people tell at tourist information points that they’d gone to Finland and Helsinki because of the cooler climate,” Nina Vesterinen, the director of tourism at the City of Helsinki, stated to YLE in June.
Finland is also attracting tourists with its offering of nature and urban experiences. “Our asset has been and will be going forward that nature is easily accessible wherever you are,” declared Wakonen.
Vesterinen agreed, telling that the Finnish capital is lauded by foreign visitors for its compact size and proximity to nature. The number of visitors to the city rebounded close to pre-pandemic levels early in the summer season.
“We have plenty of different events that are interesting. Flight bookings to Helsinki have increased 15 per cent from the corresponding period one year ago,” she told YLE.
Air travel to Finland is common especially from large countries in Europe, such as France, Germany and Great Britain.
Bookings from the US are also increasing as the result of several developments, said Wakonen: Finland’s recognition in the US has increased following its accession to Nato. Finnair, the majority state-owned airline, has increased its transatlantic capacity. The US dollar is strong relative to the euro.
“These factors explain why Americans are our largest group of foreign visitors from long-distance markets. Before the [Covid-19] pandemic, Chinese were at the top of tourism statistics among long-distance travellers.”
Wakonen told YLE that Finland was experiencing faster tourism growth than other Nordics until early 2020, but the situation turned on its head as a consequence of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Previously many tourists combined a visit to Finland with one to St. Petersburg, for example.
Destinations in Eastern Finland, meanwhile, have been hit particularly hard by the drop of visitors from Russia. While Russian visitors accounted for 28 per cent of all foreign visitors in Finland in 2013, the share has fallen under one per cent.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
