Finland down under

With Finland such a long way away, such a small country, Aussie holidays perhaps all about sun and beaches and Finland all about Lapland and snow, The Mole asked wasn’t it unusual to have dedicated seminar in Australia for Finland?

[Satu Raunola, Finland’s Representative in Australia pictured right with visitor Regional Director Overseas Markets and UK for the Finnish Tourist Board, Mervi Hyvonen.]

Mervi and Satu said, “We have a tremendous amount of unique experiences to offer Australians and most certainly ones that Australians can’t experience here, including Helsinki itself, small towns, amazing coastline, ancient festivals, great food – very different to Australia, fabulous lakes, nature, peace and quiet and in Lapland we have the contrast of summer and winter and the Sami culture where visitors can meet Sami families with reindeer and of course in winter the fabulous and very surreal Northern Lights, snow castles, ice breaker cruises, snow mobiling and let’s not forget skiing!”

The Mole asked about the famous Finnish Wife Carrying Championships and Satu said, “They ae in July” – with The Mole responding was that because wives were lighter in July that other times of the year with Satu saying that the training was taken very seriously with The Mole visualising heaps of Finnish guys training all year round running around the streets carrying their wives – with Satu saying, “there is also an Australian qualification series with the winner getting a trip to Finland to the World Championships!”

The Mole asked about if Aussies and Kiwis going to Finland would they find it expensive to which Satu and Mervi quickly responded saying, “That is an old image of Finland and we are not expensive any longer compared with say Stockholm or other European capital and in particular as we are part of the EU and now use the Euro in Finland, so we are about the same as many other European countries, with Helsinki cheaper than many other major cities, in particular compared to say London and accommodation in also in particular very affordable.”

In terms of Finland’s global marketing strategy Mervi said that she was responsible for all overseas markets and the UK – not sure why the UK is singled out, perhaps they don’t see it as overseas or more logically because it is such massive market for them – and that in Australia the Finnish Tourist Board’s strategy was to work with the travel trade and with media as a first step, adding, “Perhaps when we have more funding we will do some consumer work, but at this time the trads is critical to us.”

Satu said that Finland had been marketed in Australia since 1995, adding, “This is the first time we have had an increased budget to run a seminar series with the future very much working with the trade and wholesalers getting Finland products into programmes and expanding trade awareness of those products.” 

She added, “We have also launched our Aus web site for the first time for consumers with a trade section coming up and we will direct all our enquiries to our web site with all our partners listed there.”  “Also, what is special and different about our site is that Australians book some product here, but will also book some in Europe, so we have listed all the UK operators as they offer product that appeals to Australians and in fact one of the Finnish product supplier based in the UK has joined this seminar series in Australia to promote their products.”

The Mole asked is Finland unique in this Satu revelation, indicating the inventiveness of the Aussie arm of the Finland Tourist Broad, with Satu responding that many UK based operators also marketing in Australia with a range of product in operator programmes such as Peregrine develop product in London not here in Aus, so why not work with our operators in the UK.  She added. “Aussies are not unique, they are independent travellers just the same as in the UK, yet in Aus they do use travel agents more extensively.”

In terms of Finland being easy to get to Satu and Mervi told The Mole, “You can fly to Helsinki via Bangkok and it only takes 22 hrs, with excellent connections with Finnair and SAS in Asia, with a new link via Mumbai on Qantas and then on Finnair a great new option.”

Satu said that her future challenges are very much to push on line marketing and get consumers and trade using it, adding, “Because we are still relatively unknown we have to get awareness up with travel agents and train them about Finland as a great European option to offer their clients and these seminars are part of that as well as seminars with our local suppliers such as Bentours and Nordic Travel and that way we reach hundreds of agents.” 

“We have also last year taken over 60 travel agents to Finland because we believe that agents will sell what they experience.”

“We are also doing very strong media work and we do not see all this as a challenge, we now have more funds and for a small destination we are enjoying great success and will repeat this programme every year.”

Mervi said what was different and unique in Australia was that Finland has Satu who happened to be Finnish and puts really serious passion and knowledge behind the marketing of Finland and while Finland was not an easy sell, Satu’s approach was invaluable with Finland a niche destination and not for everybody but specialising in offering unique experiences – sounds good to me!

A Report by The Mole