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Russians save Santa’s income

Hotel Santa Claus downtown Rovaniemi. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

ROVANIEMI: Sharp decline in visitors from continental Europe to Santa Claus’ hometown during Christmas season is compensated with a similar sharp increase in Russian tourists.

Location

Nearly 11,000 bed nights in Rovaniemi during December last year were occupied by Russian visitors, up 27,5 percent from 2011. The sharp decline from countries like Italy, Spain, Estonia, Latvia could be explained by the crises in the Eurozone.

The increasing number of Russians to Rovaniemi is not only good business for the city’s hotels, but also for the shopping malls. Each Russian tourist spends some €200 per day.

Great Britan, a country that traditionally feeds Santa’s tourism machine in Rovaniemi with most visitors during December, is still keeping its position with a 3 percent increase last year, shows the statistics from Rovaniemi Tourist Information.

A study from the Research and Training Institute shows that Lapland had a €550 million income from tourism in 2011, reports YLE

January this year, the month when most Russian tourist travels, ended with an 81% increase in tax-free sales in Rovaniemi compared with the same month 2012, according to Global Blue Finland. The tax-free sale amounted to €1,75 million in January.

For the year 2012 in total, hotels in Rovaniemi had nearly half-a-million bed nights, more or less the same as the previous year. Of the foreign tourists visiting Rovaniemi, 26 percent were Russian followed by German, French, Japanese, Italian and Norwegian travelers.

Lapland’s border statistics are the best indicator that the cash-flow by visitors from Finland’s eastern neighbor continues to grow also after the Christmas season is over. Over the first three months 2013 the Salla check point, on the road between Murmansk and Rovaniemi, had a 23 percent increase in border crossers. Further north, at Raja-Joosepin check point, the increase was 18 percent, shows the January to March figures from Finnish Border Guards.