Before 2014, Russians were Finland's number one tourists, bringing in about one quarter of the 4 billion euros that foreign tourism generates annually.
According to the most recent figures from Statistics Finland, overnight stays for November 2014 by Russians were down 27 percent compared with the previous year. Some border cities reported a 70 percent drop for the traditionally frantic New Year and Orthodox Christmas holidays.
"We don't have the official statistics yet, but the estimation might be a total drop of 30 to 50 percent compared to last year," says Arto Asikainen from Visit Finland. "It doesn't look good at all. The situation in the Russian economy is not getting better, the rouble is going down, people are losing their jobs and prices are going up. So of course in this situation people are not thinking of travelling abroad."
Lapland was also hard hit by the loss in Russian visitors. One ski tour operator in the Inari-Saarielkä area, only 300 kilometres from Murmansk, said their resort lost 80 percent of their seasonal Christmas and New Year's business over the previous year.
Finnair to beef up Asian business
At Northern Europe's largest travel trade fair which wraps up this weekend in Helsinki, Finnair CEO Pekka Vauramo says his firm's strategy is effectively to bypass Russia and go straight for Asia.
"We are on our journey to double our Asian business from 2010 to 2020,” Vauramo says. “We do see growth year after year and what is more important is that we see more and more Asians stopping in Helsinki."
If that growth continues, it could offer a lifeline to Finnish travel businesses desperately seeking a replacement for the now-scarce Russian rouble.
