After turning from introvert to extrovert, Finland suddenly becomes ”hip”

”Cheap flights, bars, top restaurants”, Roger Norum lists Finland’s success factors in his travel guide

Roger Norum

print this

By Eero Kärki
     
      Being a remote country on the periphery of Europe, Finland has not traditionally been among the favourite destinations of writers of travel guides.
      However, over the past few years, there has been increasing interest in the country, and foreign publishers have brought out several travel guides featuring information about Finland.
      Among the latest ones is the English travel guide entitled The Rough Guide to Finland, written jointly by Roger Norum and James Proctor and published in the UK in June of this year.
     
”At the beginning of the millennium, Finland was not a very interesting destination in the eyes of travel guide writers, but then something happened and all of a sudden Helsinki became a 'hip' place to go”, says one of the two writers of The Rough Guide , 35-year-old Roger Norum.
      According to Norum, the ”something” included the launching of cheap flights to Helsinki, good bars, and the attraction of top-class restaurants like the Michelin-starred Chez Dominique.
      ”Another factor that makes Finland interesting is the fact that its people, culture, and language are perhaps the most mysterious combination of east and west you can find in Europe”, Norum explains.
     
Norum himself ran into this east-west combination in Virojoki, less than 10 kilometres from the eastern border, where he was thrown out of a hotel, as he was taken for a Russian spy.
      ”Perhaps I wrote up my journal too often or spoke Finnish with an accent that was too strong”, Norum says laughing.
     
American Norum has visited Finland frequently and he has even learnt the local language.
      In addition, he has studied in Russia and Norway.
      Norum’s first trip to Finland in 1990, when he was just 16 years old, was at the same time his very first foray abroad.
      Twenty years ago, the wintry Helsinki was an exotic experience for Norum, who was then on his way to Russia.
     
”Today’s Finland is a totally different place from the introverted country it was back then. It is precisely this change that makes Helsinki and the entire country an interesting destination for a travel guide writer and the traveller alike”, Norum notes.
      ”It is quite true that the country has opened up from the former porcupine-type defence, which is also reflected in the marketing of Finland as a tourist destination”, says Director General Jaakko Lehtonen from the Finnish Tourist Board.
     
”The earlier marketing of Finland merely as an empty and spacious wilderness on the edge of Europe has been replaced by the promotion of cities and laid-back hanging out. This is important, especially when it comes to wooing European weekend tourists”, Lehtonen argues.
      Lehtonen notes further that even though the internet plays an important role even in the internationalism of the Finns, it is not likely to threaten the existence of travel guides that appear in print - at least not very soon.
      ”The importance of these guidebooks for the tourism business will last a long time, and we are always pleased when somebody wants to make a first-rate tourist guide that gives information about Finland”, Lehtonen notes.
     
Travel guides frequently report even on issues that national tourist boards would perhaps like to keep a low profile on.
      For example, The Rough Guide to Finland depicts drinking booze as ”The Finns’ national sport”.
      According to the guidebook, those who visit Finland for the first time may be gobsmacked by the sight of otherwise perfectly decent Finns all the way from teenage girls to investment bankers getting completely legless already before the chimes of midnight at the weekends.
      Apart from weekends, tourists should indulge themselves in Finnish nightlife even on ”Little Saturday” or Wednesday, the guidebook recommends.
     
     
BACKGROUND: Tips for small and large budgets
     
The origin of the English Rough Guides series is similar to that of many of its competitors, such as Lonely Planet.
     
At the beginning of the 1980s, two friends who were eager travellers decided to make a guidebook that would serve the needs of tourists like them.
      Initially, the guides were designed for backpacker-style travellers on a small budget. Later on, even the needs and objects of interest of those people who use more money on travelling have been included.
     
For example, the Helsinki section of The Rough Guide to Finland has been designed for people who come to Finland for the first time or are for example on a world tour.
      They do not necessarily have the smallest possible budget, but they are interested for example in restaurant and hotel experiences.
      In addition to more than 200 travel guides, the Rough Guide series of books today includes even non-travel guides covering various fields of activities and phenomena, such as world music, cinema, literature, or even blogging and the iPod.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 27.8.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Tourist tram to commence operations in Helsinki (17.6.2010)
  Helsinki Help tourist guides assist more than 100,000 tourists (15.9.2009)
  Helsinki - a city for just everybody (16.6.2009)

See also:
  Number of overnight stays by travellers fell in June (20.8.2010)

Links:
  The Rough Guide to Finland
  Finnish Tourist Board (MEK)
  City of Helsinki official tourism website
  Rough Guides Portal: Finland

EERO KÄRKI / Helsingin Sanomat
eero.karki@hs.fi