Santa Claus and heavy snowfalls are attracting vacationers again to Lapland, bolstering Finland’s tourism trade that has been hit arduous by the coronavirus pandemic.
Vacationers from Spain, Italy and Dubai have been amongst many to go to Lapland over the Christmas interval. Letters to Santa obtained at his village have been despatched from “all all over the world,” postal elf Elina instructed Reuters.
The town of Rovaniemi in Lapland is the official hometown of Santa Claus, its tourism web site says, with points of interest that embrace a Santa Claus village and journeys contained in the Arctic Circle.
Visits are estimated to succeed in 70-80 p.c of pre-COVID-19 pandemic ranges, Sanna Karkkainen managing director of Rovaniemi Tourism and Advertising instructed Reuters.
Karkkainen stated that the invention of the brand new omicron variant had not brought on cancellations like rising case charges and Finland’s strict journey restrictions did final 12 months.
Finnish airport group Finavia stated the variety of constitution flights for this 12 months’s Christmas season was near 90% of what it was within the 2019 season.
Earlier than the pandemic in December 2019, Lapland’s tourism trade noticed 724 constitution flights land in its 4 northernmost airports, with Kittila and Rovaniemi being the preferred locations, Finavia stated.
Vacationer company Go to Rovaniemi stated there had been no cancellations.
Finland at the moment requires vacationers to current proof of vaccination, a damaging take a look at end result or having recovered from COVID-19 inside the previous six months.
Karkkainen stated that almost all vacationers come from the UK, however there are an rising variety of guests from France and Italy.
In December 2019, Lapland had 152,000 guests and lodging gross sales totalled 39.3 million euros, journey analysis firm TAK stated.
However the pandemic stopped 98% of tourists and 79% of lodging gross sales, in accordance with TAK statistics.
Pre-pandemic, Finnish journey exports have been rising by 12% yearly and the trade accounted for two.7% of the Finnish gross home product, a 2020 report by the Finnish ministry of financial affairs stated.