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Santa Claus and heavy snow falls are attracting British vacationers again to Lapland, bolstering Finland’s tourism business that has been hit exhausting by the coronavirus pandemic.
A lot of the vacationers coming to Lapland over Christmas are from Britain, Sanna Karkkainen managing director of Rovaniemi Tourism and Advertising instructed Reuters.
“The primary British charters are available in mid-November and for them the main focus of the journey is to fulfill Santa,” Karkkainen stated.
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.
Karkkainen stated that the invention of the brand new omicron variant had not induced cancellations like rising case charges and Finland’s strict journey restrictions did final yr.
Britain has not too long ago tightened guidelines for individuals coming again into the nation, requiring them to take a pre-departure COVID-19 take a look at and one other take a look at on arrival in England, regardless of their vaccination standing.
Finnish airport group Finavia and vacationer company Go to Rovaniemi each stated there had been no cancellations.
Finavia stated the variety of constitution flights for this yr’s Christmas season was near 90% of what it was within the 2019 season.
Finland at present requires vacationers to current proof of vaccination, a detrimental take a look at outcome or having recovered from COVID-19 throughout the previous six months.
Karkkainen says that whereas most vacationers nonetheless come from the UK, there are an growing variety of guests from France and Italy.
Earlier than the pandemic in December 2019, Lapland’s tourism business noticed 724 constitution flights land in its 4 northernmost airports, with Kittila and Rovaniemi being the most well-liked locations, Finavia stated.
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 holiday makers and 79% of lodging gross sales, in response to TAK statistics.
Pre-pandemic, Finnish journey exports have been rising by 12% yearly and the business accounted for two.7% of the Finnish gross home product, a 2020 report by the Finnish ministry of financial affairs stated.
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