Special guides for gay tourists who visit Helsinki

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As a result of a new development in Helsinki's gay culture, a number of trained QLife-CityGuides will be available to give guidance for gay tourists in the city as of May 1st. Apart from Finnish and Swedish, the guides will speak English, German, Spanish, and French.
      The service has been set up by entrepreneur Ilkka Veiström, who stresses that the idea is definitely not to create an escort service. It is a professional guidance service for gay tourists. The firm will supply the guides with a two-day training course and pay for their work.
      Also the clients who book a guide will be given the rules, with emphasis on normal tourist guidance - not on sex.
     
According to Veiström, there is a market niche for such guides, as entrepreneurs in the Greater Helsinki area do not do much in order to market themselves for sexual minorities.
      "Helsinki has quite a few gay restaurants and hotels aiming at equal service, but it is difficult to find them, particularly for those who come from outside the Greater Helsinki area", Veiström argues.
      In addition to Helsinki, Veiström's firm intends to provide guidance services for gays in Turku, Tampere, Jyväskylä, Kotka, Oulu, and Rovaniemi.
      The company is also compiling a guidebook entitled QLife-Travellers' Guide, in Finnish and English.
     
The guidebook will provide info about places where gay men and lesbians can expect to get friendly and unforced service with no raised eyebrows.
      "For example, the Eurovision Song Contest will bring a lot of tourists to Finland, and many of them belong to sexual minorities", Veiström says.
      According to Veiström, unlike elsewhere in the world, the Finnish entrepreneurs have not spotted the potential customers among sexual minorities - the so-called Pink Money.
     
The City of Helsinki likes to market itself as a gay-friendly city. However, only one copy of last year's Helsinki Gay Guide was available at the Helsinki City Tourist & Convention Bureau on Wednesday.
      In an emergency, an information officer at the bureau promised to print a copy of the guide from the website of Z-magazine, which is a journal for rainbow people in Finland, with links to several gay places in Helsinki.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Gay culture flourishes in Helsinki (10.8.2004)

Links:
  Helsinki City Tourist & Convention Bureau
  Z-magazine: Helsinki Gay Guide 2006

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