Tourism in Lapland is troubled with mild weather

No records will be broken this year, but Lappish tourism has certainly put on a spurt

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The thermometer is at zero, and 60 tourists in their red-and-black or blue overalls are queuing for a reindeer sleigh ride or a slide in the yard of the Poropirtti cottage belonging to the major event organiser Lapland Safaris in the village of Nivankylä, ten kilometres north of the centre of Rovaniemi.
      ”Thank you!” says Australian Tamara Walton to the reindeer after a couple of minutes’ sleigh ride, patting the animal's flanks.
     
This winter, the travel industry has hungrily accepted every single snowflake and any degrees below zero that they can get.
      Last winter, there was plenty of snow in Finland, and Lapland was a popular destination with tourists, but this year the long and warm autumn delayed the winter tourist season.
      This and the next week are the hottest part of the Christmas season, but still last weekend at least the centre of Rovaniemi was a slushy grey - not the white Christmas dream of the advertisers.
      Because of the mild weather, the rivers have also remained unfrozen, but the tourists themselves have got very hot under the collar, with worried messages being sent to the forums of sites like Trip Advisor from November onwards, as people who had booked for mid-December wondered if there would be any snow around for their "winter fantasy" trips with the kids.
     
According to Sanna Kortelainen, Managing Director of Rovaniemi Tourism and Marketing, no records will be broken this year, but the tourism business has put on a spurt.
      A total of 116 charter flights are expected to land at Rovaniemi Airport, while the number of flights arriving in Lapland as a whole is predicted to be around 350 to 400.
      A total of 40,000 tourists have visited Joulupukin Kammari, the Santa Claus Office, on the Arctic Circle in December.
      About half of the total income of about EUR 100 million gathered by winter tourism in Rovaniemi is received during the Christmas season.
     
Tourists arriving in Rovaniemi come mainly from Russia, Great Britain, and France.
      The number of Asian tourists is also growing. Somewhat surprisingly, the tourists coming from the European crisis centres, including Italy, Greece, and Spain, have been using money more generously than the others.
      The scarcity of snow does not bother the tourists in the yard of the Poropirtti cottage.
      ”It has been an unbelievable experience to ride snowmobiles and enjoy reindeer sleigh rides. We did not manage to build a snowman, but we have made angels in the snow", Tamara Walton and sisters Sarah and Edwina Halleen report.
      The Japanese couple Yoko and Gohei Ueda are also satisfied. However, they would like to see the Aurora Borealis, but they know that they are hidden behind the clouds in the mild weather.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Aurora Borealis video has more than million viewers (13.12.2011)
  Tourism in Lapland more successful than anticipated (23.1.2009)

See also:
  Santa Tourism Superpower (19.12.2006)

Links:
  Lapland Safaris

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