Recession summer filled Finland’s amusement parks and Baltic cruise ships

Tightened budget caused Finns to resort to domestic holidaymaking

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The Finnish tourist attractions had a great summer, even though the weather could at times have been friendlier.
      Citizens frightened and impoverished by the credit crunch decided on caution, skipping their customary Mediterranean beach holidays and resorting to visiting domestic tourist sites instead.
      Amusement parks in particular, such as Helsinki’s Linnanmäki and Tampere’s Särkänniemi, benefited from the recession summer.
      “We experienced a double-digit increase in visitor figures, at least 12 per cent. So the summer has been extremely successful. Mind you, the summer before was relatively lousy”, says communications director Tiina Mörttinen of the Särkänniemi Adventure Park.
     
The sentiments at Linnanmäki are similar, although in visitor figures the Helsinki attraction is likely to remain at last year’s level due to the spring’s poor business sales, which collapsed to half from the year before.
      “The beginning of June was chilly and that was reflected in ticket sales, but once the actual holiday season started we have had markedly more visitors than last year”, explains Linnanmäki managing director Risto Räikkönen.
      In both amusement parks it has also been noted that the visitors spent more money than the year before.
      “Considerably more cash was spent for example for food and beverages in the park area. On the other hand, the Näsinneula observation tower’s à la carte restaurant had clearly fewer customers this year”, explains Mörttinen.
     
The Jukupark water park in Kalajoki in the west of Finland experienced a record summer. According to the managing director Hannu Hellman, the number of visitors grew by over 50 per cent.
      “We revamped the area, the weather was favourable, and I suppose the recession played a role as well”, Hellman lists reasons for this year’s success.
      The water park’s success helped the area’s spa and hotel to also reach a positive result, even though most of the visitors to the area settled for a day-trip and did not overnight there.
     
Those who wanted to travel a bit further favoured Baltic cruises. The most popular destination was Estonia, but also cruises to Sweden increased their popularity for the first time in a long while.
      Tallink Silja’s passenger figures grew in July by 23 per cent on the route to Estonia, and by 11 per cent on the route to Sweden. Part of the reason may be that with the strong euro, both the countries are seen as a cheap destination for Finns.
     
According to Statistics Finland June figures, the Finns tightened their purse-strings not only with regard to travelling abroad, but also in domestic overnight stays.
      Even though the popularity of domestic travel grew by 10% already in June, this was not reflected in the number of overnight stays in hotels and hostels.
      The sleeping arrangements were taken care of by staying with relatives or at the summer cottage.
      But even if hoteliers failed to collect the domestic holidaymakers’ pennies, the country’s camping sites did at least succeed in increasing their earnings by a couple of percentage points from last year.
      According to Finnish Campsite Association managing director Antti Saukkonen, the month of July and the beginning or August, in particular, were busier than a year before.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Survey: Finns´ holiday budgets are now bigger than last year (12.6.2009)

Links:
  Linnanmäki Amusement Park
  Särkänniemi Adventure Park
  Jukupark
  Camping in Finland

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