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Santa has visitors: Finland's Christmas resorts in full swing, despite Omicron

The Christmas season is flourishing in Finnish Lapland, where venue operators happily report that visitors have returned in numbers approaching pre-pandemic levels.

The Christmas season is flourishing in Finnish Lapland, where venue operators happily report that visitors have returned in numbers approaching pre-pandemic levels.

Tourists from elsewhere in Finland and abroad are flocking to Finnish Lapland to revel in the festive spirit at the sprawling Santa Claus Village theme park, take a reindeer or husky sleigh ride and if they’re lucky, glimpse the Northern Lights.

How long the winter fun will last is uncertain as the omicron coronavirus variant leads to new travel restrictions, test requirements and quarantine measures.

“It is a worry, of course, because no one knows what’s going to happen,” Sanna Karkkainen, CEO of Visit Rovaniemi, the tourism board for the capital of Finnish Lapland. “There’s always the worry that are we going to get cancellations.”

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns and travel restrictions hit the northern Finnish region’s travel industry hard.

Before the pandemic, about 60% of Rovaniemi’s more than half-million annual visitors came from abroad, mostly from elsewhere in Europe and some Asian countries.

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Aurora Borealis

According to Visit Rovaniemi, just over 11,000 people visited the city last December, an 82% drop from the same month a year earlier.

Having survived a wretched 2020, many businesses see this winter as a “turning point,” Karkkainen said.

“They could not suffer another year, another Christmas, without customers, that’s for sure,” she added.

Winter is the busiest tourist season in Finnish Lapland, and Air France and Eurowings recently added new direct flights to Rovaniemi from Paris and Dusseldorf, respectively.

Local businesses say demand was high this month as visitors made their way north, relieved to have gotten away after last year’s lockdowns.

“I think the last week, last few days, have been busier than ever,” Tuomas Palmgren, co-owner of Rovaniemi taxi service Santa Line, said.

There are currently no hugs with Father Christmas at Santa Claus Village — visitors are separated from Santa by a gingerbread cookie-shaped plexiglass screen. But returning tourists are a welcome sight for many.

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Reindeer in a winter forest in Finnish Lapland

Starting Tuesday 21 December, Finland is reintroducing increased health screening on all travellers from outside the European Union or Europe’s 26-nation Schengen Area, requiring all arriving passengers to show proof of a negative test taken within the previous 48 hours.

For Karkkainen and her tourist board colleagues, keeping up with new rules and what they might mean for business is a daily “puzzle,” and one with no end is in sight.

“You look at the latest updates” each day and wonder, ‘What’s happening with the travellers?'” she said.

“It’s been a really rough one and a half years, and the most surprising factor is that we don’t know when it’s really going to end.”

Source: AAP