Tourist Attractions in Finland in 2007
The Finnish Tourist Board has published a report about the number of visitors to Finnish tourist attractions from 1985 until 2007, the survey was carried out annually. The target group of the study is the Finnish tourist attractions; built tourist attractions, significant festivals, cultural events and housing fairs. About 47% of the attractions are open throughout the year. The rest of the attractions are mainly open during summer. The trend of the number of visitors of all the tourist attractions in the database for the years 2004-2007 is examined in the report. In the data, the tourist attractions are classified by type and region.
In 2007, the tourist attractions in the report were visited by 27.5 million visitors. Leisure centres and events had the most visitors per year. The most popular of the actual tourist attractions are spas and leisure centres, which had a total of 3.3 million visitors. Festivals and cultural events were visited by 2.2 million tourists and amusement parks had 2.1 million visitors. The most popular individual tourist attractions in Finland were Linnanmäki Amusement Park, Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, Särkänniemi Amusement Park, Temppeliaukio Church, Uspenski Cathedral and Korkeasaari Zoo, each one with more than 0.5 million visitors.
Concentrations of visitors at tourist attractions were checked throughout the whole Finland. The attractions that were the busiest in terms of number of visitors were concentrated to certain specific areas. These emphasized areas in Lapland were Kittilä, Pello, Kolari and Kuusamo. Also Pohjanmaa, the south-eastern part of Etelä-Pohjanmaa, Kanta-Häme and the eastern part of Pohjois-Savo were highlighted regions. The busiest area among the foreign tourists was North Lapland. In addition, foreign tourists visited more often certain cities like Kotka, Savonlinna, Imatra, Helsinki area, Turku and Tampere.
The predicted visitor increase is about 9 percents for 2008. The biggest growth is expected by special exhibitions and buildings.
Most of the visitors of the tourist attractions are from Finland. In total, about 3.5 million foreign tourists visited the places, which are included in the report for 2007. This is about 12.6% of all the visitors to attractions. Ships, churches and other religious attractions have the largest numbers of foreign visitors. Germans are the largest group of foreign visitors in Finland. Swedish and Russians are the next largest groups.
The total value of the investments made by the tourist attractions was 178.9 million euros in 2007. Ski resorts, leisure centres and events invested the most. The investment plans for 2008 are 121.4 million euros and for 2009 127.5 million euros. About 31% of the respondents answered the investment question, so these investment numbers should only be examined as indicative.
This report compares the biggest tourist attractions in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Austria. The level of the number of visitors to the most popular attractions in these countries seems to correspond to the number of inhabitants. The only exception is Norway where the number of visitors is smaller.
The information about the number of visitors in 2007 was received from 86 % of the 478 tourist attractions in the database. Some of the attractions that did not reply were closed in 2007 and others had shut down. Some attractions also mentioned that they did not keep accounts of the number of visitors or simply did not reply to the survey. The information was obtained directly from the attraction, so the reliability of the data depends on the calculation methods used by each attraction. Therefore, the figures are not entirely comparable.
You can download the full report in PDF format (5534 Kb):
Matkailukohteiden kävijämäärät 2007 = Number of Visitors to Tourist Attractions 2007(*)
Taloustutkimus Oy
Helsinki : Finnish Tourist Board, 2008
(MEK. E:54)
978-952-5682-15-1 (nid)
978-952-5682-16-8 (PDF)
ISSN: 0782-4432
(*) This publication has been discontinued. No new data will be produced.
Further information about earlier surveys please contact kirsi.suni(at)visitfinland.com
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