Finland - Travel and TourismFinland - Travel and Tourism
Overview
The United States is one of the main long-haul destinations for Finns with over 146,000 Finnish arrivals in 2017. Florida, New York, and California continue to be the best prospects for the U.S. travel industry. Finns find it easy to adapt to the American culture and are open to exploring new destinations and themes to travel to the United States. Although Finns generally favor “sun and sand” and city destinations, a growing number of travelers are looking for activity holidays. The trend is that more travelers are looking for individual travel packages and are interested in various activities such as local culture, nature, or sports. Thus, Finns have shown interest in destinations like Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, and New Mexico.The Finnish Government imposes no restrictions on foreign travel for its citizens. Since October 1, 1991, Finland has been included in the U.S. Government’s Visa Waiver Program (VWP), allowing Finns to travel to the United States for tourism, business, or while in transit for up to 90 days without having to obtain a visa. Finnish passports have been machine-readable since 1987, and biometric passports were introduced in August 2006.
With an average of five weeks of annual leave, Finns take several holidays a year. Finns usually book their travel well in advance and take time to plan their holidays. Long-haul destinations are popular, and, with good English and other language skills, Finns are quite experienced travelers. New destinations, travel themes, and experiences are gaining interest. As an example, the Finnish travel magazine Mondo, with an estimated readership of 100,000, awarded Chicago as its best food destination in 2018.
Finnair, the national airline, offers seasonal direct flights from Helsinki-Vantaa airport to Chicago and Miami and around-the-year to New York City. A seasonal non-stop connection to San Francisco was launched in June 2017 and to Los Angeles in March 2019. Other airlines offering connecting flights to the United States with their alliance partner networks include Icelandair, launching four new U.S. destinations 2018, Lufthansa, KLM, Norwegian, and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS).
Leading Sub-Sectors
The popularity of the United States as a travel destination for Finland is based on the large variety of activities the nation offers. The east coast receives the largest volume of travelers from Finland, and, in addition to New York, Washington, DC and Boston are of increasing popularity. Finnish travelers find it easy to combine various attractions – beach holidays, city tours, theme parks, culture, shopping, nature, road trips, etc. – into a single trip. First-time travelers, families with children, and senior citizens favor Florida attractions and beach holidays, whereas younger people and experienced travelers favor the West Coast – San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles. For Finnish business travelers, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Atlanta are the most common destinations.Opportunities
Nordic Matka Travel Fair, January 17-19, 2020, HelsinkiDiscover America Committee Finland