Ski resorts are being developed at risk in Levi and Ylläs

Regardless of declining tourist numbers, new hotels and apartments are going up apace at Levi and Ylläs in Lapland

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A brand new hotel is to be set on the top of the Levitunturi fell, just a couple of minutes away from the centre of Levi by gondola. The four-star hotel is to be the finest and the most expensive establishment in the region, featuring luxurious amenities for skiing tourists to enjoy.
      The new hotel is to complement the new Levi Summit Conference and Exhibition Centre, offering a first-class venue for diverse events from small private occasions to conferences for more than 400 attendees.
     
Whether or not tourists will find their way to Levi Summit in the current economic situation, nobody knows.
      As a result of the ongoing economic downturn, the number of overnight stays at Levi hotels declined in March by some 20 % compared with last year.
      However, regardless of the poor economic prospects, work at a number of Lappish construction sites continues.
      After completing the new hotel, the Finnish construction company YIT plans to start building a condominium next to the hotel.
      The company also has a couple of apartment blocks in nearby Ylläs, which have gone unsold. Ylläs is another ski resort in Finnish Lapland, some 70 kilometres south of Levi.
      The timeshare company Holiday Club is also completing its own apartment hotel below Levi Summit in Levikeskus, the centre of the Levi resort.
     
In this economic situation, the supply of accommodation is beginning to be greater than the demand, both hoteliers and real estate agents admit.
      Finnish companies have decreased the number of their visits to Lapland.
      Moreover, as a consequence of the unfavourable rate of exchange between the euro and the British pound, there has been a major haemorrhaging in the number of Brits travelling to Lapland this past season.
      Levi is among those resorts in Lapland which have been affected badly by the recession.
     
Päivikki Palosaari, the local hotel and restaurant entrepreneur, has also been forced to reduce the opening hours of her restaurants in Levi.
      While local souvenir shops are offering huge discounts on their merchandise, the Marimekko outlet is having a clearance sale only five months on from its opening.
      ”In the course of the summer we will consider whether or not we could open a new shop in Levi next autumn”, says Pirjo Karvinen, the owner of the local Marimekko shop.
     
Tourists are also saving by consuming less money at restaurants, while local supermarkets have gathered handsome profits, as visitors are making more food at their holiday residences and eating in rather than out.
      In addition, long queues of snowmobiles have been seen waiting for customers both in Levi and Ylläs.
      ”At present, groups of tourists are smaller. One can hardly ever see the groups of 40 people we had before”, says Marja-Liisa Kurula from PerheSafarit Oy, the local company offering snowmobile safaris. An anonymous source suggests that later this spring will see a rash of snowmobile operators up for sale, or at the very least a lot of used machines coming onto the market.
      At the same time, the Lappish entrepreneurs are trying to figure out how the season could be extended.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  A de luxe wedding in Lapland (18.3.2008)
  Thai exoticism in Finnish Lapland (7.4.2009)
  Bankruptcy means hundreds of British tourists will not see Santa in Lapland (19.12.2005)

See also:
  Tourism in Lapland more successful than anticipated (23.1.2009)

Links:
  Ylläs
  Levi Summit

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