Finnish Tourist Board
The Finnish Tourist Board is a bureau included under the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy, responsible as an expert agency and active operator in tourism for promoting Finland as a tourist destination internationally.
Finnish Tourist Board supports tourism industry businesses and groups in developing and marketing tourism services for the international market. Finnish Tourist Board’s funding comes from the state budget, with EUR 9,700,000 budgeted for 2010. In addition, the Finnish tourism industry is estimated to contribute approximately EUR 500 000 to tourism marketing annually directly and through Finpro.
Finnish Tourist Board’s Core Functions
1. Marketing communications on Finnish tourism
- Image of Finland as a tourist destination: Finnish Tourist Board’s main task
- Responsibility for coordinating the Finland image lies with a Ministry for Foreign Affairs committee Finland Promotion Board, which includes Finnish Tourist Board as the tourism image expert
- Responsibility for fulfilling the tourism image lies with Finnish Tourist Board together with businesses in the sector, in collaboration with embassies, representative offices and Finpro
- Shift to image marketing implemented gradually
- Product marketing: actions in partnership with industry operators to support the Finland image and promote products on offer
- Partnerships between tourism service providers and sellers
- Promoting networking
- Market-specific overseas partnerships with private operators, Finpro, embassies and representative offices
2. Acquiring market data and making it available to the tourism industry
- Data acquisition in partnership with tour operators, international agencies, research institutions, Finpro and representative offices
- Seeking new target groups and countries
- Creation and maintenance of an electronic database
- Analysing data and transmitting it to companies and transfer organisations
3. Promoting high-quality product development and commercialisation
- Developing thematic projects based on the national tourism strategy, and planning and coordinating their implementation
- Participating in tourist centres’ extensive product development projects in the capacity of experts
- Participating in creating regional tourism strategies and plans in the capacity of experts
- Communicating visions of tourism to public organisations that finance and develop the industry
Creating an electronic information and trading platform for Finnish tourism
- In addition to its core tasks, Finnish Tourist Board’s major development project for the near future is to create an electronic information and trading platform for Finnish tourism.
- Examine the requirements/conditions for building a shared portal
- Determine the content of the customer-oriented portal and open the project to competitive bidding
- Manage and monitor the completion of the project
- Ensure the portal is maintained
- Increase awareness of the portal as a part of marketing communications
Development of Finnish Tourist Board’s Operating Model
- Finnish Tourist Board has no offices abroad. Finnish Tourist Board cooperates overseas with other Finland-related operators, selecting the best partner and operating method for each market.
- Administration of functions in Finland will be acquired from a service centre, while support services will be outsourced as much as possible
- The focus of Finnish Tourist Board’s operations will gradually shift to marketing an image of Finland as a tourist destination, while commercialisation and product development will increasingly be handled by individual businesses. General business support bodies will take on a bigger role in aiding this.
- Promoting awareness of the new electronic information and trading portal as a part of its marketing communications will become one of Finnish Tourist Board’s core functions
Resources
- Finnish Tourist Board’s funding comes from the state budget
- Finnish Tourist Board covers the cost of marketing Finland’s tourism image overseas
- Finnish Tourist Board covers the cost of Finland image marketing and its own input in campaigns; the industry will cover the cost of the actual marketing and distribution costs of its own campaigns
- The share of campaign costs covered by industry operators must be at least 50%
|
|
|