2. Contents  Sectors to be developed  The winter brand  Focal points of the product themes 

3. Development Strategy for Winter Tourism 2014-2018

4. VISION OF WINTER TOURISM
Winter in Finland offers exceptionally memorable experiences in a pure arctic environment. Finland is the top choice in Northern Europe on the wish list for winter holiday destinations of the selected target groups.

5. MISSION OF WINTER TOURISM
Developing business activities
Increasing the supply of attractive, high quality and accessible products.
Fascinating and effective sales and marketing activities in co-operation with a professional private sector.

6. Making Finland a winter destination for forerunners.
A goal in developing winter tourism is to ensure its continued positive development also in the coming years. . We want to stand out among the competition with a more varied supply of products and a higher quality.

7. Sectors to be developed
Sectors to be developed

8. Improving Product Development1
Improving Product Development
Customer know-how: creating customer-oriented products and turning them to functional packages
Understanding new markets
Continued improvement of quality, redesigning
Tools to help turning services to products
Development of the winter products in Southern and Central Finland

9. 2 Increasing Collaboration and Networking
In a small country tourism cannot afford to remain an industry of individual actors. Active networking leads to better business results.
Collaboration within tourism resorts as well as between independent actors is worth improving.

10. Diversification of Sales and Marketing3
Diversification of Sales and Marketing
Increasing the share of the winter market within the distribution channels
Innovative marketing. With small media budgets it is difficult to stand out among the competition with conventional advertising.
Visibility of the winter services in all of Finland
Improved know-how with regard to the distribution channels
Electronic sales channels

11. 4 Maintaining and Improving Accessibility
A key challenge for the whole industry
Poor accessibility renders even the best marketing efforts useless.

12. The Winter Brand

13. special events in winter
Positioning Winter Tourism Promise: A unique snow experience – wilderness with services.
Safaris
Cross-country and downhill skiing, snowboarding
Snow-shoeing
Skating
etc.
Nature (the Northern Lights, the winter darkness etc.)
Ice and snow
Culture
Traditions
History
The Arctic way of life
Winter
activities
Memorable
experiences
WINTER BRAND
Exotic/Arctic
White
Original
Functioning
Christmas and other
special events in winter
Christmas and Santa Claus
New Year, Easter and other festive days

14. Focal points of the product themes

15. Thematic Focal Points - Winter
Versatile Winter Experiences
• The Northern Lights
• Safaris
• Snow- and ice products
• Winter events
• Versatile products offering
original, even unique
experiences , standing out
among the competition
• Silence
• The every day wintry solutions
experienced by the visitors
• Authenticity
• The Sami people and their
culture
Way of Life
A Unique Snow Experience –
Wilderness with Services
• Versatile nature experiences
enriched with elements of
culture
• Packaged services combining
several themes
• Local food
• Seasonal ingredients
• Culinary feast traditions
(Christmas, Easter)
• Giving the visitor a chance to
participate in food making
Nature Spiced with Culture
Food

16. Finnish Way of Life
Visitors are interested in true stories and encounters with the local people. In many markets Finnishness is seen as something exotic.

17. How do we survive winter?
Foreigners are interested in how Finnish everyday life functions during the cold period of winter darkness, surrounded by snow.

18. Finnish Christmas traditions and the Sami people with their heritage.

19. Authentic, straightforward and intimate
(small villages vs. big tourist resorts)

20. Finnish Food
Local food offers plenty of opportunities. It is a global trend many people are interested in.

21. Finnish food is pure

22. The seasons are observed in the menus,
theme dishes

23. Diversification of cuisine in ski resorts

24. Increasing the Range of Winter Services
The neighbouring countries as well as big resorts in Central Europe are also offering lots of winter activities. HOW CAN WE STAND OUT?

25. Emphasis on the unique know-how of snow and ice of the Arctic people

26. Development of new services – without compromising on authenticity,
e.g. utilisation of Finnish folk mythology

27. Paying more attention to families with children

28. Diversifying Northern Lights tourism

29. Combining Culture, Nature and Well-being

30. Developing customer-oriented flexible and comprehensive service packages

31. Adding cultural elements to the winter programmes

32. Silence and mindfulness form an ever growing trend.
It offers a lot of opportunities also for Finnish winter tourism.

33. The Concept of Image Advertising in Asia
FOR INFORMATION AND UTILISATION BY BUSINESSES IN THEIR OWN MARKETING EFFORTS

34. “”Meaningful encounters””

35. When asking tourists who have visited Finland what they think is great in this country, the answers are often cryptic. It is difficult to explain what is impressive in Finland. The mystery starts to unravel when prying what makes Finland a better place to visit than Sweden and Norway, both of which can offer similar kinds of products and more majestic scenery.
Visitors to Finland are exceptionally impressed by how spontaneous and genuine the people they meet are, and of the fact that they get a chance to experience things themselves – rather than admiring things from a distance. This sounds self-evident, but it is not. These two things combined make Finland special.
A tourist wishes to experience new things on different levels. To see beautiful things, meet interesting people, sense pure nature, be stunned by the Northern Lights and feel the peace of silence. A meaningful encounter is the common denominator for all these things. To some extent they can be rather esoteric but they feel quite real all the same. They touch very intimately and reach one’s innermost soul.
“Meaningful encounters” is the concept of VisitFinland’s image marketing. Image marketing revolves especially around the relationship between man and nature, but the concept bows to all themes and tactical goals. It does not promise anything that Finland could not fulfil.

36.
Etunimi Sukunimi

37. Further information and comments
Ms. Liisa Renfors
Product Specialist, Finpro/VisitFinland
liisa.renfors(at)visitfinland.com