Finnish Lapland strives to excel in adventure travel

New animation studio to attract international film producers

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By Josetta Mykkänen
     
      Miikka Raulo, 31, has a challenging task. He is supposed to turn Finnish Lapland into a province with an adventure-driven economy.
      Raulo is the head of the Rovaniemi-based centre of excellence for the adventure industry. His work goes beyond the marketing of nature experiences in Finnish Lapland. He focuses on working together with companies and educational institutions in the development of adventure travel packages that are marketed around the world.
     
Most of the companies in the area are small businesses which lack the resources to produce products on their own. Local authorities focus on their own projects, and coordination is not easy.
      "It is difficult for politicians to grasp that the production structure is changing", Raulo says. A large part of his time goes into explaining that instead of traditional forest and technology work, the companies should create content. They need to do something similar to what Walt Disney did.
     
The creative economy probably has close to a ten-percent share of GDP in the Nordic Countries. However, drafting international statistics is not easy, because the distinctions are not always easy to make in the field.
      "Growth is certain, but predicting the percentages is quite impossible",Raulo points out.
      "Technology is currently a driving force in Finland, but content production will increase considerably in mobile enterprises, for instance. Also in the tourism business the growth trend has been clear. Instead of material goods, people are looking for experiences."
      In Finnish Lapland, the adventure business, which involves tourism, entertainment, design, and the new media, is experiencing an annual growth in turnover of 4-5%. Next year’s goal for turnover is EUR 450 million.
     
Rovaniemi has taken a great leap forward from the late 1990s, when they first woke up to the notion of adventure travel. People have understood that nature and silence are the best attractions of the area. Santapark, a British-style theme park, was something of a flop. It has now been developed in a more Finnish direction.
      To support tourism, the city is putting more into the development of the kind of technology that can be used for the premarketing and postmarketing of adventures. For instance, a camera system is being developed for snowmobile trails which would give the travellers a video to remember their trip by. Santa Claus has an Internet television, and he can be viewed live on the display of a mobile telephone, for instance.
      Several companies producing digital content have invested in the fairly new Santa’s Technology Park. It also includes the development of winter and low-temperature technology.
     
Efforts to attract film and animation production to Finnish Lapland are underway. In the view of film secretary Anne Häkkinen, the existing good tourism infrastructure offers an excellent framework for this. "When Europeans want to take pictures of snow, they are accustomed to going to Canada", Häkkinen says.
      She is now marketing Finnish Lapland as a cheap production location compared with the other Nordic Countries. An important part of the efforts is the new 3D animation studio, Lapland Studio, in Rovaniemi. It has some of the best animation equipment in the Nordic Countries. One of the studio’s competitive edges is the cheap price, which is based on EU subsidies, and the availability of students for much of the work.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat - first published in print 1.8.2005

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JOSETTA NOUSJOKI / Helsingin Sanomat
josetta.nousjoki@hs.fi