Santa's Homeland Faces Harsh Winter As Tourists Kept Away

Helsinki, Sept 17 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Sep, 2020 ) :Between November and March, Finland's far north usually throngs with international holidaymakers who come to experience a snowy wonderland of reindeer rides, ice castles and the "real" Santa's grotto.

But despite record visitor numbers in recent years, the coronavirus shutdown will leave many of Finnish Lapland's tourism businesses facing ruin this winter.

Many fear that government moves to ease travel restrictions in the Nordic country will not go far enough to offset the damage.

Tour operator Sini Jin said her firm faces hard times if business doesn't pick up.

Jin has run Nordic Unique Travels for five years, offering Northern Lights safaris and expeditions into the Arctic wilderness to thousands of travellers from Europe and Asia every season.

"Now we've had one or two bookings a week, and mostly we're just doing refunds," Jin told AFP from Rovaniemi, an Arctic Circle town that markets itself as "the official hometown of Santa Claus".

Her firm will only employ "two or three" seasonal staff this year instead of the normal 80.

Jin's company received emergency financial aid after the government put aside over a billion Euros ($1.

2 bn) to help businesses.

A loan has now come through that will see her firm through December, but the future is still precarious.

"Everything we've worked for will be gone so quickly if we don't get help." Her predicament is shared by tourist companies across Finland's vast Lapland region, where the sector supports 10,000 jobs and generates one billion euros of annual revenue.

A tourist board survey found that without international visitors this winter, around 60 percent of tourism companies expect to lose at least half their turnover and three-quarters would have to lay off staff.

"We're not hopeful of getting any significant bookings," Kaj Erkkila, managing director of Husky Park, told AFP.

The 10-person family firm has been a popular dog sledding destination for "many decades" and keeps 109 Siberian huskies.

"If this winter's revenue stays low, we might not be able to operate in 2021-22 either, as maintaining the dogs is very expensive," Erkkila said.

Tourist board head Nina Forsell said the situation is make-or-break for many firms.

"If companies go down this winter it will take a long time for them to rise up again," she told AFP.