Ascent travel is planning to increase its winter tourists
flow to Finland
to 50%: 20% during the New Year festive season and 30% in January-April 2013.
At the same time the expected growth for Europe
is not more than 15%, which is in line with the consumers market growth rates.
The bestsellers will be the resorts of Lapland Levi and Yullas. Mr. Evgeniy
Sudbin, the General Director of Ascent at the mutual press-conference with Visit
Finland, noted that the expanded program of flights on Boeing -757 owned by the
air company Vim-Avia to Kittila will include 9 and 10 day tours. The flights
are planned not only from Moscow
but also from Kazan and Yekaterinburg. For the first time they organized a
direct flight from Kazakhstan,
which became the launch of this service.
The main news for the market will become 12 weekly direct
flights from Moscow
to Kittila every Sunday from January 13 to March 31. Such a long charter
program is happening for the first time. So far no one managed to extend the
charter chain till March because the charter risks have been too high. Just the
support from the Finnish side was not enough as it is well known that Russian
alpine ski fans prefer the Alps
Mountains to the Finnish
hills. For the first time in the history of Finnish-Russian travel business
relationship Finland will
provide financial support for their colleagues from Russia. Taking into consideration a
greater interest of the Russian tourists to this direction, Finland (fund
created by Visit Finland and the resort Levi) has taken, according to Evgeniy
Sudbin, 20% risk of not filling the aircrafts.
Ascent Travel’s Deputy General Director for Development Alexey
Petrov has confirmed the growth of popularity of Finland,
especially Lapland, among Russian tourists.
The statistics he provided presented that Russians spent 30% more nights from
November to April 2011-2012 compared to the same period of the previous year. He
also mentioned that Finnair’s flights from Moscow to Kittila were almost fully loaded
and at least half of the passengers were tourists.
The director of Visit Finland Arto Asikainen supported his
Russian colleague and said that last season during November-April 2011-2012 Finland had
been visited by 1.7 millions of Russians (+17%) and 78% of them were tourists. Estonia rates
second place with a flow of 338 thousand tourists. During the first seven
months the Finnish people have counted 929 Russian accommodation nights, which
is already 19% more than in the similar period of the previous year. Estonia is followed by Germany.
However the German people have made only 348 trips, which is a third of the
Russian indices.
Mr. Asikainen hopes that the promotion campaign of Lapland
in Russia
financed to the tune of a half million Euro, will significantly support the
spring plans of «Ascent Travel». The
marketing programme is about to start in October.
