KEY TOURISM SECTOR OPERATORS IN FINLAND

Tourism Trade Associations

1. Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa, the trade and labour market association for the Finnish hospitality industry, represents tourism industry businesses operating in Finland. Its members account for 85 % of Finland’s tourism sector turnover, and comprise enterprises aiming to increase domestic travel in Finland and to attract international travellers to the country. MaRa offers its members a wide range of collective bargaining, legal, training, research and statistical services. It is responsible for collective bargaining in the accommodation and catering, ski resort, programme services and amusement, theme and adventure park sectors. MaRa has more than 2,400 members with over 6,000 outlets. Member companies employ 60,000 staff and their net sales exceed €5.5bn. MaRa is a member of the Confederation of Finnish Industries.
2. SUOMA, the Association of Tourism Organisations in Finland, is the joint body of tourism operators in Finland, i.e. regional organisations, tourist centre organisations, and tourist information offices entitled to use the association’s green i-sign. SUOMA is an organisation supervising members’ interests in relation to central organisations in the tourism sector, state tourism administration and other organisations in the industry. It does not aim at direct financial gain or benefit for its members.
3. The Association of Finnish Travel Agents (AFTA) looks after the interests of tour operators and travel agencies. It is a member of ECTAA, the European Travel Agents' and Tour Operators' Associations. AFTA has more than 160 full members with some 300 offices and around 70 associate members, including airlines, shipping or land transport companies, accommodation businesses and tourism sector magazines.
4. The Finnish Camping Site Association is a network comprising around 150 camping sites in Finland. Members’ overnight stays on camping sites account for 75 % of a total of two million overnight stays on camping sites in Finland.
5. Hostelling International Finland (SRM) is an umbrella organisation with a membership of nearly 50 national youth, student, sports, hobby, pensioners’, trade and tourism organisations. The SRM chain of organisations comprises more than 60 Finnish hostels. It is a member of the IYHF (International Youth Hostel Federation).
6. Finland Festivals (FF) is a collaboration forum for Finland’s leading cultural events, with 100 affiliated festivals attracting almost two million participants to various events every year.
7. The Finnish Ski Area Association (SHKY), the umbrella organisation of Finnish ski resorts, has a membership of 76 ski resorts and 47 ski schools. Members represent 99 % of the entire industry’s lift ticket turnover.
8. The Finnish Bus and Coach Association is the umbrella organisation of 340 bus and coach operators. In addition to full members, the association has cooperating and supporting members.
9. SITE Chapter Finland, a member of the international organisation SITE, represents all enterprises offering and producing services for the work-related travel sector (conference and incentive travel, events). Association Finland. SITE Chapter Finland’s membership covers 90 % of the sector.
10. SMMY is a nationwide Association of Rural Tourism Entrepreneurs with 180 member companies. In addition, the association has key rural tourism sector actors and developers as supporting members.

Other Associations

1. The Finnish Business Travel Association (FBTA) is an organisation for business travel professionals, including both buyers and suppliers. Its mission is to enhance the understanding, knowledge and skills required in corporate travel and meeting management and procurement. The FBTA provides added value to its members, by providing information aiming at cost effective and high-quality travel management, alongside a benchmarking network.
2. ECEAT Finland (Finnish Eco-Agrotourism Association) is a network of 40 organic and biodynamic farms and other ecologically responsible travel destinations. ECEAT’s aims to develop and promote tourism that supports organic agriculture, sustainable land use, protection of nature and the environment, and the protection of cultural heritage and traditional rural landscapes. ECEAT Finland is a member of the European Centre for Ecological and Agricultural Tourism (ECEAT International).
3. The International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT Finland) increases awareness of the connection between tourism and information technology, and disseminates the related information between national tourism businesses, technology, media and telecom sectors and research. It also promotes the utilisation of the products and services it develops.
4. Founded in 1969, the Finnish Guild of Travel Journalists is an association of journalists specialising in travel. The association has over 100 members.

Labour Market Organisations

1. Service Union United – PAM is Finland’s second-largest labour market organisation. PAM members in the tourism sector work in restaurants, hotels, spas, ski centres and firms providing programme services for tourism. Some 80 % of the Association’s more than 220,000 members are women. Members are employed in the private service sectors.

Associations for Individual Members

1. The Automobile and Touring Club of Finland (ATCF) is an association established to look after the interests, services and hobbies of individual motorists. It has more than 100,000 members.
2. Suomen Latu – the Finnish Central Association for Recreational Sports and Outdoor Activities – is a promoter of physical exercise, outdoor activities and hiking. It covers 225 member associations, and has a total of 77,000 individual members.
3. SF-Caravan ry (SFC) is a national, independent consumer organisation for motor home and caravan enthusiasts. The organisation covers 70 local SF-Caravan associations with more than 60,000 members.
4. The association of Finnish tourist guides, Suomen opasliitto, has 100 guide clubs as members. These clubs have 1,750 individual members, who are locally or regionally operating guides, tour leaders and wilderness guides. The association supervises the training of guides and grants member clubs guide badges, to be distributed to those who have attained the basic qualification for a tourist guide. The association participates in the work of a number of international federations, including the Inter Nordic Guide Club (IGC), the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (WFTGA), the European Federation of Tourist Guide Associations (FEG), and the tourist guide associations of Baltic countries.

Public Sector Actors

1. The Ministry of Employment and the Economy is responsible for defining tourism policy priorities, for the general development of tourism, and the coordination of support measures for tourism. It is also responsible for preparing legislation on tourism and maintaining tourism relations between nations. The Ministry finances a number of major investment projects related to tourism and labour market training in the tourism sector. Moreover, regional policy falling within the Ministry’s area of responsibility is closely connected with the development of tourism. Tourism is a significant industry as regards regional development, particularly in less developed areas in Eastern and Northern Finland. The Ministry contributes to handling tourism issues in international organisations.
2. The Finnish Tourist Board promotes Finland’s incoming tourism by means of marketing Finland's image as a tourist destination, and supports the development of tourism services in Finland.
3. The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority maintains a register of package travel companies. Tour operators must deposit collateral that secures return transport for travellers, their accommodation at the destination and any advance payments made, should the trip be interrupted or cancelled due to the tour operator’s bankruptcy or other insolvency. Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI) participate in supervision.
4. Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) supervises and promotes the technical safety and conformity, together with the consumer safety. Consumer safety legislation, according to which a party providing consumer services such as tourism, obligations include among other things duty to take care, a risk assessment and self-control, an incident logging, notifications concerning dangerous services and to carry out a written safety document. In addition to Tukes parties responsible for health supervision in municipalities, and Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI), supervise compliance with legislation.
5. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry develops rural tourism and promotes rural, village and nature tourism based on small enterprises and networked cooperation.
6. The Ministry of Transport and Communications secures the operating conditions of tourism by developing the infrastructure it requires. The Ministry improves the preconditions for tourism traffic by taking the needs of tourism into consideration when developing information services for public transport and car traffic. Moreover, it plays a significant role in the development of electronic communication systems for tourism.
7. The Ministry of the Environment is responsible for ensuring environmental conditions favourable for tourism. It steers land use planning and construction and works for environmental protection. The Ministry’s administrative sector produces services required by tourism in nature conservation areas, such as guide centres and hiking trails.
8. The administrative sector of the Ministry of Education and Culture covers sectors key to tourism development, such as education and research. Support measures for culture and the creative economy are targeted at the development of cultural and sports tourism and at creating preconditions for physical exercise.

Regional Authorities

1. Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centres) offer financing, advisory, consulting and training services for tourism companies’ business development. They manage issues related to the environment, land-use planning, transport and route networks and other construction of infrastructure for tourism. Moreover, funding and programmes under Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation – cover tourism companies in the regions, as well as actors and closely related industries supporting the development of tourism. Services are available for developing employees’ competencies and work organisations. The whole of Finland is covered by fifteen ELY Centres.
2. Regional Councils are responsible for regional development in compliance with the Act on Regional Development. They are also responsible for the regional, strategic development of tourism together with other key actors, including enterprises, regional tourism organisations, ELY Centres, municipalities, research and education institutions, etc. Regional Councils can include tourism development measures in statutory programmes, such as the regional strategic programme and its implementation plan. Regional Councils provide funding for extensive travel destination development projects and are responsible for looking after the interests of tourism. There are 18 Regional Councils in mainland Finland, plus Åland.

FINLAND’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES AS A TOURIST COUNTRY

Measures targeted at promoting the tourism trade must be based on Finland’s proven strengths and weaknesses, and the resulting development needs. Finland’s primary competitors in the international tourism markets are Sweden and Norway.

Strengths

1. Accessibility from Russia: Russians already form the largest foreign customer group in Finland. The potential for increasing the number of tourists is huge, since Finland enjoys a unique location next to St. Petersburg and the adjacent areas. Russia does not have connections to any other state which are as good and quick as these, and the high-speed Helsinki-St. Petersburg rail link will enhance Finland’s competitiveness even further in terms of attracting Russian tourists.
2. Attractive tourist areas: Finland has a number of attractive tourist areas, including Helsinki, the Turku Archipelago, Finnish Lakeland and Lapland, including Kuusamo.
3. Diverse tourist centres: Finland’s tourist centres, which have had a particular focus on the development of leisure travel, offer a diverse range of high-quality services. In addition to a variety of accommodation and restaurant services, they offer downhill skiing, cross-country skiing and a wide range of programme, wellbeing and spa services. The centres are close to nature and the peace it offers. Due to the existence of airports in the vicinity of these tourist centres, transit distances are short. Taken together, these factors constitute a singular competitive advantage for Finnish tourist centres.

Weaknesses

1. Awareness of Finland: Finland is a small, unknown country. Finland cannot become better known without active efforts to improve the image of the country in general and as a travel destination. The prerequisites for improving Finland’s tourism image have been weakened considerably in the last few years due to cuts in the Finnish Tourist Board’s budget.
2. Accessibility: Viewed from parts of the world other than Russia, Finland is an island. Indeed, distances from other, non-Russian, parts of the world are longer than in the case of competing countries, which raises travel costs. Convenient air traffic links and moderate price levels are vital to Finland’s tourism. It would therefore be vital to open up chartered transport links and new routes from abroad. In terms of inland traffic, train services will become increasingly important as environmental requirements become stricter. Not all of Finland’s rail network is in the best possible shape.
3. High price levels: The prices of Finnish tourism services are high on a European scale. Furthermore, international travellers have the notion that Finland is a high cost country. High taxes and labour costs are one reason for this. When a foreign customer chooses a travel destination among countries of the same type, price plays a key role. Finland will never be a budget destination nor a mass tourism country, but price levels will still play a key role in Finland’s success as a travel destination.