Who’s visiting Lapland by plane? No one really knows…
Airport operator Finavia maintains passenger stats that may not accurately describe how many foreign tourists visit remote regions such as Lapland.
Aviation authority Finavia’s passenger statistics do not accurately reflect the nationalities of tourists who visit Lapland from abroad. Registering the nationalities of travelers is problematic for the company.
Most international airline passengers visiting Lapland are routed there through the main Helsinki-Vanaa Airport. Finavia, however, counts all passengers on Helsinki-Rovaniemi flights as “domestic travelers” whether or not that is that case on any given flight.
Only passengers arriving at Rovaniemi in Lapland on direct charter flights from foreign airports are counted as international. Therefore figures from last year that say 123,881 international and 455,589 domestic flyers arrived at Rovaniemi cannot be trusted.
Travel agents aware of snag
CEO Sanna Kärkkäinen from tourism firm Visit Rovaniemi is direct in saying that Finavia is actively distorting travel figures by counting layover passengers as domestic travelers.
“The travel industry needs hard data in order to develop and for their investments to pay off,” Kärkkäinen says.
The problem has apparently been a common subject among travel agents for years.
“We get the challenge, and other stats from Finavia make it to us fair and square,” Kärkkäinen says.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Nunavut gears up for increase in Arctic tourism, Radio Canada International
Finland: Chinese tourists spend big in Finland’s capital, Yle News
Iceland: Norwegians and Icelanders let Alaskans in on the secrets to economic prosperity, Alaska Dispatch News
Norway: A cruise ship bound for the North Pole, The Independent Barents Observer
Russia: Foreign cruise vessels line up for voyages to Franz Josef Land, The Independent Barents Observer
United States: Alaska’s cruise industry just keeps getting bigger, Alaska Dispatch News
