Conclusions

Gathering the data from the questionnaires (appendix 1.) was harder than the re-searcher had anticipated. People were not interested in answering when they heard the questionnaire survey was about Finland. Difficulty to get participants and the re-searcher’s lack of time was the main reasons for the small sample size. Most partici-pants said that they have no knowledge of Finland as a country or as a tourism destina-tion. The ones who the researcher was able to convince to answer said that they seem to have more knowledge of Finland that they actually anticipated to have. Some par-ticipants kept asking from the researcher are their answers right, even though the ques-tionnaire (appendix 1.) was not meant to research right or wrong answers but the per-ceptions and images that people have about Finland.

It became clear that the knowledge that Irish people had about Finland in general was quite poor. There were lots of stereotype ideas of Finland being too cold, too far, and expensive and that it lacks to offer attractions. The answers showed that Finland was seen mostly by its location in Northern Europe. No one of the participants actually

knew that Finland offers also summer travel products that are popular among other Europeans. (Krzywacki etc. 2006, 132) There was only one participant that associated Finland with lakes and even sauna was not that known among the participants. Accord-ing to Balza (2006) Finnish Tourist Board’s view of Irish people’s perceptions of Finland were wavering, expensive, boring, location being far away and not having much information about the destination. These assumptions were quite accurate when compared to Irish people’s answers. The Finnish Tourist Board is trying to change these perceptions, but images are not changed rapidly, since people have difficulties changing their pre-existing perceptions. (Pizam & Mansfeld 2000, 213)

Finland was seen as a country with extremely cold weather and with lots of snow.

Finland was best known for being the Christmas capital of the world. According to Balza (2006) Christmas as a travel product is not marketed in Ireland by the Finnish Tourist Board, because there is no need for that, since Irish people’s knowledge is al-ready quite high. Most of the participants proved this argument right by associating Christmas with Finnish Lapland, snow and Santa Claus. Finland was also known by rally and rally drivers. It seemed to be well known among men aged 25 to 55.

The most unappealing factor was the climate. As for marketing a destination such as Finland climate is one of the elements that affect both people’s images and the market-ing strategies. Accordmarket-ing to Lumsdom (1997, 240) “Some holidaymakers travel pri-marily to escape the climate of their home region.” When awareness of all elements of Finland’s climate is bad or non-existing, it affects directly the destination image. The data received from the questionnaires (appendix 1.) showed that Irish people didn’t know about Finland’s four seasons and that Finland actually has a warm summer.

Finland was described by some participants not appealing enough, because some par-ticipants thought there is a lack of attractions to see. Finland has lot of attractions and historical sites to see for example UNESCO has declared six world heritage sites in Finland. Ireland for example has only two. (UNESCO 2006) It became clear that most of the participants’ answers were subjective observations of Finland and not the actual truth. But these subjective observations have a huge impact on the demand of Finnish travel products. Before the perceptions and images of Finland as a country and as a

tourism destination change into something more accurate and positive the image of Finland is unlikely to improve much in the future in the eyes of Irish people.

Some participants blamed their lack of knowledge by saying that there is not enough advertisement about Finland as a tourism destination. According to the product man-ager of Finnish Tourist Board’s London office (2006), at the moment information about Finland can be found from the Finnish Embassy, from some travel agencies and from the Internet. The Finnish Tourist Board markets Finland at the Travel Fair in Dublin and straight to the travel organisers. It would be beneficial for Finland if it would get more publicity in the Irish media.

“The main responsibility for destination promotion lies with official bodies such as the NTO (national tourist office)”. (Laws 1995, 116) In Finland’s case the biggest respon-sibility lies with the Finnish Tourist Board’s London office. For marketing Finland as a tourism destination it is important to first know the perceptions behind the destination image. By knowing what kind of images tourists have about the destination helps mar-keters to develop their marketing strategies. It is said that the successful destinations are the ones that have positive image in the minds of both the potential and non poten-tial tourists and have a marketing strategy that matches with these images.

According to Balza (2006) Irish people’s perceptions and images are changeable, but only through a long process. Finnish Tourist Board emphasises that Finland should get more positive publicity and travel agencies should be the ones who spread out the word about Finland. The reality is that the only way of changing images and perceptions of a person who has not seen Finland before and do not know much about it is by actually visiting Finland. (Balza 2006)

According to the Finnish Tourist Board (2007, 4) first time in the year 2006 the num-ber of foreign visitor arrivals was bigger than the numnum-ber of domestic visitor arrivals.

In the future the Finnish Tourist Board will be focusing more on building the Finnish destination image than it has done before. (Finnish Tourist Board 2007, 4) This prom-ises better future for Finland in the Irish markets. It also means that more of this kind of research with larger sample should be conducted in Ireland in the future, especially

now when Ryanair has started all-year-round flights from Tampere to Dublin. (Ryanair 2007)