VISIT Finland has unveiled that they will be coordinating with Finnish travel agency Matka-Vekka to come up with bundled tourism services aimed at luring more Asian travellers to the country.
An initial 50 packages will be offered on Visit Finland’s website, with Matka-Vekka slated to launch its own stopover programmes in 2016.
The initiative is part of the Stopover Finland programme, which seeks to promote Finland as an attractive stopover location for international passengers travelling via Helsinki Airport. Key markets for the programme include Japan, South Korea, China and Hong Kong.
Stopover Finland targets to generate an increase of 45 per cent in overnight stays and 80 million euros (US$87 million) in revenue from Asian tourists by 2018.
In a statement, Visit Finland said that currently, only four per cent of passengers flying from Asia to other destinations via Helsinki actually tour the country.
Heli Mende, programme director of Stopover Finland, Visit Finland, said: “So far, only a handful of stopover products have been developed for individual Asian travellers. An operator was needed that will not only build the service packages, but also provide a platform to distribute the stopover packages.”
