Moose theme increasingly popular in souvenirs from Finland
Over half of souvenir goods manufactured in Asia
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Shelves of the Annensoppi souvenir shop are bulging with bottle openers, magnets, and wallets with images of moose, or elk on them. Annie Lee from Taiwan examines some moose soft toys.
Moose have become increasingly popular in the souvenir business, coming close to reindeer as an exotic symbol of Finland. The selection of moose goods has doubled in the past five years.
“There are constantly more moose products emerging. The latest is a moose guitar pick. A wooden butter knife does not sell well on its own, but if it has a brand showing a moose or a reindeer, it sells better”, says Anne Forsström, who has run Annensoppi since the 1980s.
"The moose is certainly a magnificent animal, very big and exotic. It does not exist in Central and Southern Europe.”
It is said that the idea of using moose imagery as a theme for souvenirs started in the 1990s in Sweden, where some tourists had taken to stealing road signs warning drivers of moose on the highway.
This gave rise to stickers, refrigerator magnets, and other merchandise with the moose warning signs on them.
Foreign travellers spend more than EUR 200 million a year on shopping in Helsinki.
Tax-free sales, available to travellers from outside the European Union, amounted to more than EUR 31 million in January-July.
The most popular products for tourists outside the EU are tax-free clothes. Gift items accounted for 2.5 per cent in the early part of the year.
Stockmann’s department store says that favourite items bought by tourists include moose products, as well as reindeer skins, Iittala glassware, along with souvenir t-shirts, keychains, and magnets.
Sales of moose items have grown by 5-10 per cent in the past couple of years.
“In Asia, reindeer skins are a big item, but reindeer are interesting in South America as well. As a wild animal, moose are in the same category. Many tourists cannot tell the difference”, says Christel Björkman, sales manager for souvenirs at the Academic Bookstore.
Travellers from Russia account for the greatest volume of sales of tax-free goods in Finland and Helsinki. Purchases by Chinese in the early part of the year exceeded those of Japanese tourists for the first time ever.
The Aarikka shop on the North Esplanade, which sells products for interior decoration, says that sales to Chinese customers increased 244 per cent in the early part of the year.
“The sum spent by the Chinese is not great, but more people are coming from there all the time. Americans, on the other hand, are holding on more tightly to their dollars”, says sales director Maikki Lindström.
An estimated 20-30 per cent of souvenirs sold in Finland are manufactured in Finland, about 60 per cent are made in Asia, and the rest come from Europe.
The retailers insist that they choose manufacturers who treat their workers well.
Aarikka’s goods are manufactured in Finland, although some of the metallic parts come from other EU countries.
The summer’s hit was wood jewellery, which Lindström says accounted for more than half of sales of the company’s Esplanade sales outlet. A tenth comes from moose goods.
“The moose is seen as a Finnish or Nordic animal. Tourists assume that it is Finland’s national animal”, Lindström says.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 3.9.2010 - TODAY |
 Moose theme increasingly popular in souvenirs from Finland
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