Visit Finland has re-entered into India last year in order to tap the potential of growing outbound market here. Explaining the rationale behind return to India, Teemu Ahola, Account Manager – Asia, Visit Finland, said that one of the main reasons for our return is that we not only see the great timing and potential, but also that suppliers and partners from Finland are now more ready and capable to serve Indian travelers.
“We see a great potential in India. There has been a steady growth. 2018 was really good in terms of overnights and also the potential growth from India is really strong. Although the number of overnights is not much more but India market is emerging and developing,” Ahola said. Indian arrivals to Finland grew by 15 per cent in 2018.
Finland receives a lot of corporate and business travel from India due to a stronger trade ties between two nations. “For now, I think it is more leisure. As a lot of Indians are working in some of our neighboring countries, bleisure is one of the emerging segments for us,” he said.
Responding to a question of over India strategy, he said that Finland has not done strong marketing in India yet. “This is due to the fact that we wanted to be sure that our Finnish partners are well prepared. We have few great suppliers joining the India roadshow. We are focusing on India market. Now, suppliers are supporting our aim to develop this emerging market. We also have strong promotional activities. We are certainly focused on b2b market right now. We are targeting some of the MICE companies. We are now widely seen in media. We had a couple of successful media fam trip from India,” he said and added that the marketing budget is limited. “With these activities, we are hoping bigger funding from our stakeholders. We will be working closely with Thomas Cook and Cox&Kings,” he added. Visit Finland is also planning to introduce online agent training programme in India in future.
