Steam engine transports British Christmas tourists from Rovaniemi to Kemijärvi

Christmas charter flights have ever-widening effects on Lapland economy

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By Tapio Mainio
     
      The latest attraction to persuade foreign tourists to visit Lapland over the Christmas season is a steam train ride through the winter wonderland from the Lapland capital of Rovaniemi to Kemijärvi, the northernmost city in Finland.
      Increased tourism is a most welcome change to the Kemijärvi area, which has been suffering from a minor slump ever since the shutting down of the local pulp mill.
     
The steam locomotive puffed and blew through its first vehicle inspection ride in Rovaniemi on Thursday. The Arctic Express train pulled by a genuine steam engine and tender will set off on the first one of its ten scheduled journeys from Rovaniemi on December 15th.
      In all, around 600 charter flights are expected to arrive in Lapland in December, bringing in no less than 110,000 Christmas visitors. Most of them come from Britain.
     
The idea to use a steam locomotive was conceived by an Englishman Adrian Collins, the owner of Britain’s number one Lapland tour operator, a company called Canterbury Travel. Collins has also acquired and renovated Rovaniemi’s old engine shed.
      "In addition, Canterbury Travel has bought a hotel in Sodankylä and a restaurant and a holiday village in the Luosto ski resort. At the Suomu ski resort near Kemijärvi, the company has erected two new hotels. One out of ten people in Lapland work in tourism, but the industry’s multiplier effects are even more far-reaching", says Esko Lotvonen, executive director of the Regional Council of Lapland.
     
From the Kemijärvi railway station a coach ride will take the Christmas visitors either to Luosto or Suomu. In both locations the programme includes husky, snowmobile, and reindeer rides, and of course an audience with Santa Claus himself.
      Real elves zigzagging about their business along the train track add to the festive atmosphere.
      In every one of the train’s five wooden carriages the wintry landscape can also be admired through a large video screen displaying live footage transmitted by a camera at the front of the locomotive.
      "Previously the charter flights to Lapland were mostly just one-day visits, but nowadays more and more tourists are looking at overnight stays. Already last Christmas season, the Lapland accommodation businesses recorded 110,000 overnights by Britons.
      The second and third largest groups of foreigners to visit Santa were the French and the Russians with 14,000 and 13,000 overnight stays respectively", explains project director Minna Kurttila from Lapland Marketing Ltd.
     
The effects of Christmas tourism on employment and the travel industry services in general are spreading further and further. This Christmas season the airports of Enontekiö and Kuusamo, in particular, will increase significantly their number of charter flight arrivals from abroad.
      "In the northern municipality of Ivalo the number of charter flights will drop some from last year, whereas in Kittilä and Rovaniemi the number of seasonal flights will remain more or less the same as in December 2006", notes Rovaniemi Airport manager Martti Oinas.
     
The Christmas steam train’s locomotive, Tk3 1148, better known as "Little Jumbo", was manufactured in Arhus, Denmark, in 1949, reports locomotive enthusiast Jukka Ahtiainen from Espoo. Ahtiainen had taken a day off just to come to Rovaniemi to photograph the engine’s test run.
      Collins purchased the engine from a Finnish private individual. The steam locomotive was looked after by the Porvoo Museum Railway Society, a private organisation in charge of the upkeep of the last 17 kilometres of the old Kerava-Porvoo track from 1874, on which refitted rail busses are used to bring summer tourists from the capital Helsinki into the historic coastal town of Porvoo.
      A Rovaniemi-based construction firm Kimroi Oy has spent the entire autumn reconditioning the engine and its five wooden carriages. In the near future a more powerful "Risto" locomotive will accompany "Little Jumbo" in transporting Lapland holiday makers.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.11.2007


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Rapid growth in numbers of Chinese and Indian tourists in Finland (23.2.2007)
  Santa Tourism Superpower (19.12.2006)

Links:
  Visit Finland - Lapland
  Rovaniemi
  Canterbury Travel

TAPIO MAINIO / Helsingin Sanomat
tapio.mainio@hs.fi