Ruka ski-resort looking to winter season with excitement, but no fears as yet

The snow is there, but will the customers be coming?

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By Vesa-Pekka Hiltunen in Kuusamo
     
      On the slopes of the Ruka ski-resort, the snow cannon emit a high whine, like the jet aircraft engines they somewhat resemble.
      The cannons are drawing water from the artificial lake at the bottom of the Saarua runs and belting it out as ice-crystals further up the hill.
      The black earth is being given a white coating as if from a spray-can, as Arto Kajava directs the cannons this way and that across the slope. The snow cover is becoming inexorably stronger as the temperature remains just below freezing - ideal conditions.
     
Ruka, one of Finland's largest ski-resorts, began laying down the white stuff on its pistes just over a week ago.
      The Saarua section to the north-east of the Rukatunturi fell has been open to downhill skiers since last Sunday, and now a few other runs are open as well.
      This means that the snowmaking equipment has won a victory over the resort's first enemy - the shortage of raw materials in the early part of the winter.
      Now places like Ruka will have to consider ways and means of overcoming an equally tricky adversary, in the shape of the international financial crisis and fears of recession.
     
Eyes in Northern Finland have been scanning not just the sky for signs of snowflakes, but also the economic tea-leaves and the financial pages of the newspapers, considering what effects the financial crisis might have on tourist numbers.
      In particular the grim economic news coming out of Britain has caused furrowed brows in the tourism business, for Lapland and Northern Finland have been popular destinations for the British Christmas trade.
      Kuusamo and Ruka are no exception: of the more than 77,000 overnights here by foreigners last year, roughly a third were British holidaymakers.
      The international economic woes mean that English may not be quite such a lingua franca in the north this Christmas.
      To take one example, the British tour operator Canterbury Travel's Managing Director Adrian Collins commented to the Finnish Broadcasting Company in September that there would be some 8,000 fewer Christmas tourists heading this way on their trips this year, compared with 2007.
      In some of the wildest scenarios, it has been suggested that the shortfall could be as much as 30,000 British Xmas travellers.
     
They have been reading the news in Ruka, too.
      Project Manager Mikko Hiltula, who is in charge of the snowmaking operations for the resort, has said that the possible impact of the financial crisis has been discussed at length over the coffee cups.
      Hiltula says there is no sign as yet of a crisis on the doorstep - he has not heard of major cancellations.
      It may be that the effects begin to bite only next year.
      In any event, the snowmaking crews do not wish to make their life any more difficult with worrying.
      "All I have to do is produce snow out of water, and not to fret about other stuff", says Arto Kataja philosophically, and he goes off to move his cannons around the battlefield.
     
At Ruka they are laying down snow not just for the early tourists, but also for some sporting visitors who will be arriving shortly.
      This weekend, the resort has already welcomed a number of Alpine skiers who have shown up to get some practice ahead of next weekend's FIS World Cup events in Levi.
      Levi, further north in Western Lapland, will host two FIS slalom events on November 15th and 16th. Last year's races had to be cancelled through a failure of the elements, but this time there is no shortage of artificial snow on the Levi Black hill and the meet will go ahead as planned.
      In three weeks' time, Ruka itself will be hosting the Ruka Nordic Opening, which will involve a total of eight FIS World Cup competitions in ski-jumping, cross-country skiing, and Nordic Combined.
     
In the pedestrian precinct to the west of the Ruka hills, the sound of a power drill can be heard from the construction site of the new RukaVillage Hotel, scheduled to open in the fall of 2009.
      At the nearby Kumpare shopping mall, things are still quiet, but the pace is expected to pick up in the next few days.
      At the outlet of one travel service provider, the mood is one of cautious confidence.
      "Our advance booking situation is pretty much as normal. Last year the majority of bookings were confirmed only at the last minute, so it will be exciting to see how things pan out this year", says Arctic Safaris' regional manager Marko Mustonen.
     
Nonetheless, contingency plans have been made.
      It was actually Jyrki Niva, the CEO of Arctic Safaris' parent company Lapland Safaris, who voiced that pessimistic assessment of a possible 30,000 fewer British visitors this year.
      "We have recruited staff for the season a bit more carefully than in previous years. We are concentrating on local sales, and the success of this will be very important for us", says Mustonen of the rescue plans in case matters go awry.
     
At the RukaShop, the T-shirts, skiwear items, and small souvenirs are still neatly set out awaiting the customers.
      Kate Perry's I Kissed a Girl plays softly in the background, but there are no customers around to hear the music as yet.
      When the season starts in earnest, the goods will be coming off the shelves at the same rate as before, believes Johanna Lyly, who heads the Rukakeskus sales and rental activities.
      "Of course we are a little bit tense over the financial crisis and what it will bring, but there is no real sense of fear. Sales have taken off quite well, even though it is early days and as yet we have not had that many customers coming in", says Lyly.
     
In the lobby of the Rantasipi Rukahovi Hotel, receptionist Tetti Vainikka goes through a pile of envelopes on the counter.
      They contain the tour programmes, keycards, and basic info on the hotel for a group of clients expected shortly.
      Last winter, some 70% of all overnights in the Kuusamo area were Finnish, and around 10% were Russian tourists.
      Hotel Manager Lea Riekki reports that the domestic demand for Christmas packages and the Russian orders for the period after Christmas and into the New Year both look good.
      "At least at this stage things look to be taking reasonable shape", says Riekki.
     
The snow-cannons paint the landscape and Ruka sits back to wait for the skiers and the financial news.
      There is less need now to keep checking the weather forecast, as the snow cover should last for a good long time to come.
      For the last five years, it has been possible to ski down Saarua until well into the month of June.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 9.11.2008

More on this subject:
 Growth in Lapland tourism expected to wane

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