A third of visitors to Lappeenranta’s new holiday resort expected from Russia

Total budget of large-scale project in hundreds of millions

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The new holiday resort to be erected on the shores of Lake Saimaa near the south-eastern city of Lappeenranta will rely heavily on clients coming from Russia.
      Holiday Club Resorts Oy, a shareholder in Saimaan Kylpyläkiinteistöt Oy, the builder of the Holiday Club Saimaa spa hotel in the historic Rauha ("Peace") district of Lappeenranta, hopes to attract in excess of 300,000 visitors to Lappeenranta each year. Managing director Vesa Tengman estimates that 25-30 per cent of the guests will arrive from Russia.
      The location is ideal, for the Russian metropolis of St. Petersburg is only 230 kilometres away. The distance to Helsinki is 20 kilometres longer.
     
Holiday Club Resorts Oy announced on Thursday that funding has been clinched for the EUR 64 million spa hotel.
      The construction work is scheduled to start in February and will be complete in the summer of 2011.
      The most significant structure in the plans is the 222-room spa hotel.
      The historic Rauha hospital district will be turned into a complete holiday resort by the year 2020. According to Tengman, Rauha in the heart of the Saimaa Gardens service complex, is the largest new tourism undertaking in the Nordic Countries.
     
In addition to the spa, the area will be fitted with a multi-purpose arena, a golf course, time-share apartments, and other types of leisure suites.
      The idea is to fit the area with up to 8,000 beds, which would raise Rauha into the same league with Vuokatti in Kainuu Province further north.
      Development company Miriensis estimates that by the year 2020 some EUR 300 million will have been invested in the complex called Saimaa Gardens.
      The plans for the spa hotel were drawn quite some time ago, but the recession interfered with the schedule.
      “I have taken part in quite a few projects, but this has certainly been the most difficult one to finance”, says Tengman.
     
For the Lappeenranta region, the news of the plans moving forward comes at a perfect time.
      This week Lappeenranta lost more than 350 jobs, when UPM announced that it would shut down its plywood mill in the city.
      Itella in turn told that it would reduce staff from the mail handling centre there.
      The spa hotel will provide 250 permanent jobs. Director Jarmo Pirhonen from the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment in Southeastern Finland estimates that as a whole the new holiday resort may give work to up to 500 individuals.


Links:
  Saimaa Gardens press release
  Saimaa Gardens

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