Tackling the problem of the seasonality in the North

Below is an overview of Takumi Okuno's research:

I moved to Lapland from Japan in August 2023, and I was looking forward to seeing the northern lights and meeting Santa Claus just the same as the tourists coming to Lapland. However, while I spent more time in Lapland, I was attracted by the other activities such as enjoying the midnight sun, visiting national parks, and going for hikes and camping. There, I felt the joy and beauty of summer tourism in Lapland.

While studying tourism, I became particularly interested in the problem of tourism seasonality as I found summer tourism in Lapland to be very attractive and saw potential for its development. However, there is a significant gap between the number of tourists visiting in summer and in winter. Thus, I decided to focus on the problem of tourism seasonality in my thesis while considering the viewpoint of Japanese people. In my thesis, I explored how Japanese people view Lapland as a travel destination through destination image theory proposed by Gartner (1994).

Lapland in Finland is extensively facing the problem of tourism seasonality right now. The peak season is winter, particularly the Christmas season, when almost one million bed nights in paid accommodation was registered in 2023. However, the number was around 400,000 during the summer peak in July and only around 100,000 on lowest season in May (Visitory, 2024). Thus, almost ten times more tourists visit Lapland during the peak winter season compared to the lowest season. Tourism seasonality leads to economic, socio-cultural, and ecological impacts, and Lapland is no exception to the challenges of tourism seasonality such as the underutilisation of the physical and social structures designed for the winter peak season during the rest of the year (Rantala et al., 2019).

However, Japanese tourists would be one of the potential target groups for developing summer tourism and achieving year-around tourism in Lapland. Japanese tourists are one of the main tourism markets in Finland for both summer and winter seasons now, but most of them do not visit Lapland during summer, though large number of Japanese people visit Lapland during winter. The statistics before the pandemic in 2019 showed that 225,200 Japanese tourists visited Finland. Japan ranked 10^th overall in the number of tourists visiting Finland, and 3^rd among non-European countries, after the United States and China. About 40% of Japanese tourists visiting Finland travelled to Lapland during winter. However, only 8 of them visited Lapland during summer even though the number of Japanese tourists visiting Finland was more in summer (Visit Finland, 2016; 2019). Thus, Japanese tourists would be one of the key potential markets to achieve year-around tourism.

A questionnaire was distributed to 153 Japanese people. It was designed to measure cognitive, affective and conative dimensions of destination image, perceptions of activities in Lapland as represented in Visit Finland website, and possible obstacles stopping Japanese people from visiting Lapland. The cognitive image relates to tourists' perceptions of a destination's attributes, such as attractions, environment, public services, and infrastructure. The affective image reflects tourists' emotional response to the destination, shaped by their attitudes and values —for example whether the destination is fun, relaxed, or exciting. The conative image refers to tourists' intention or likelihood of visiting the destination, which can be seen as their travel inclination (Wang et al., 2023).

In terms of cognitive image, 25 attributes identified by Alcañiz et al. (2009) was measured. Japanese people most commonly perceive Lapland as a destination characterized by natural attractions and scenery, followed by tranquillity, cleanliness and hygiene, open air activities, and variety of other activities. The least recognised attributes were accessibility followed by local transport, shopping facilities, and value for money. However, it was revealed that access to Lapland is not as difficult as some Japanese people expect when comparing the perceptions of those who had visited Lapland and those who had not.

In terms of affective image, the four-dimensional bipolar scales introduced by Russell and Pratt’s (1980) i.e., Unpleasant-Pleasant, Gloomy-Exciting, Sleepy-Arousing, and Distressing-Relaxing, were utilised. Across all four dimensions, Japanese people perceived summer much more positively than winter. Previous studies have shown that affective image strongly influences the motivations of tourists, suggesting that Japanese people could be the appropriate target group for developing summer tourism in Lapland. Especially, those who were familiar with or had visited Lapland perceived it in summer much more positively, compared to those who were not familiar with or had never been to Lapland showing more positive affective image towards Lapland in winter.

Conative image was measured through three perspectives: intention to recommend, to spread positive word-of-mouth, and to visit or revisit the destination. There were no clear differences based on the seasons. However, it was found that those who were familiar with or had visited or lived in Lapland had a significantly more positive conative image for summer, not only compared to winter but also compared to those who had never been to Lapland.

Perceptions of activities in Lapland were examined by researching five summer activities and six winter activities represented on Visit Finland website. The activities which Japanese people felt most interested in for each season was the “Midnight sun” for summer and the “Northern lights” for winter. Winter activities were much more interesting for Japanese people compared to summer activities. The three least interesting activities were “Sami”, “Lappish people”, and “Sauna”. Previous knowledge about Lapland and past travel experiences to Lapland also influenced interests in activities. Those who were familiar with Lapland and those who had visited or lived in Lapland showed significantly greater interest in summer activities in general.

Possible obstacles to travelling to Lapland were also researched. The most frequently mentioned obstacles to visit Lapland were accessibility, distance, and travel time because of the geographical distance and the difficulty of getting longer holiday in Japan due to the working culture. Money was mentioned second because of the cost for travelling to Lapland and the cost within the destination. Climate, language, mosquitoes, uncertainty of northern lights, less information, needs for guides, and crowdedness were mentioned more than two respondents.

The data analysis revealed that the previous knowledge about Lapland and past travel experiences significantly influenced the affective and conative destination image, and perceptions towards Lapland particularly for the summer season. However, around two-thirds of the respondents did not even know Lapland before the questionnaire distribution. Thus, the importance of the promoting Lapland and raising awareness of Lapland as a travel destination among Japanese people should be emphasised. Additionally, the importance of the past travel experience to Lapland should be highlighted and investigated more to develop summer tourism and to achieve sustainable and year-around tourism in Lapland.

References

Alcañiz, E. B., García, I. S., & Blas, S. S. (2009). The functional-psychological continuum in the cognitive image of a destination: A confirmatory analysis. Tourism management, 30(5), 715-723.

Gartner, W. C. (1994). Image formation process. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 2(2–3), 191–216.

Rantala, O., Barre, S. D. L., Granås, B., Jóhannesson, G. Þ., Müller, D. K., Saarinen, J., & Niskala, M. (2019). Arctic tourism in times of change: Seasonality. Nordic Council of Ministers.

Russell, J. A., & Pratt, G. (1980). A description of the affective quality attributed to environments. Journal of personality and social psychology, 38(2), 311.

Visit Finland. (2016). Market Review: Japanese Visitors in Finland. Business Finland.

Visit Finland. (2019). Foreign Overnights in Finland 2019.

Visit Finland. (n.d.). Top Five things to do in summery Lapland.

Visit Finland. (n.d.). Top things to do during winter in Lapland.

Visitory. (2024). Visitory. https://visitory.io/en/

Wang, Z., Udomwong, P., Fu, J., & Onpium, P. (2023). Destination image: A review from 2012 to 2023. Cogent Social Sciences, 9(1), 2240569.