Christmas boom in the Arctic Circle

Am zweiten Feiertag hat der Weihnachtsmann wieder Zeit. Auf einer Rentierfarm bei Rovaniemi im Norden von Finnland kann man dann jedenfalls eine Privataudienz bei ihm buchen. Heiße Getränke sind inbegriffen, für warme Kleidung muss man selbst sorgen. Der Preis ist knackig. Zwei Stunden in der Kälte zusammen mit einem bärtigen Mann im roten Kostüm und einer Herde Rentiere kosten 1500 Euro.

Rovaniemi liegt am Polarkreis, tausend Kilometer nördlich von Helsinki, am Rand der bewohnten Welt. Hier kommt niemand zufällig hin. Im Winter ist die Sonne kaum zu sehen, für Skiferien taugt die Gegend mangels nennenswerter Abfahrtspisten nur bedingt. Trotzdem sind die meisten Hotels zurzeit ausgebucht. Die Taxifahrer machen Extraschichten, Mietwagen sind kaum zu bekommen. Und draußen vor der kleinen Stadt, im Weihnachtsmann-Vergnügungspark namens „Santa Claus Village“, stehen die Besucher sich die Füße platt. Sie wollen Rentiere streicheln, Punsch trinken, Souvenirs kaufen, Geld ausgeben.

Because the Finns have achieved something phenomenal. Tourists from all over the world consider Rovaniemi to be the official home of Santa Claus. This is what it says in brochures and catalogs, this is how it is distributed on websites and social media channels. The fact that St. Nicholas was at home in what is now Turkey and that Santa Claus, his pop culture revenant, never commented on his homeland according to the authoritative accounts – is a gift. The tourists don't care, they flock there. It's a million-dollar business for Rovaniemi and for Lapland, the surrounding province.

The highlight is that this doesn't even have a long tradition. Just forty years ago, the Finnish tourist association came up with the idea of ​​marketing the city and all of Lapland as “Santa Claus Land”. To do this, they have brazenly seized upon the figure of the cozy gift distributor, invented in America. To justify this, it was enough for them that the most famous of all American Santa Claus poems says that he travels with a reindeer sleigh. And it has been proven that reindeer really do exist in northern Finland.

Cultural scientists have written entire volumes of essays about the remarkable generosity with which travelers today define the meaning of “real” and “original” when choosing their destinations. In Rovaniemi, the deciding factor is not the northern lights, the ice fishing, or the snowmobiling, but Santa Claus.

According to Finnish folklore, a mountain on the border with Russia would have some claim to be considered the home of Santa Claus. With a lot of imagination he looks like an ear through which pious wishes can penetrate into the interior of the earth. But a moderately spectacular mountain in the middle of nowhere is no good tourist destination. A businessman from Rovaniemi, who had made his fortune with a playground equipment company and was therefore familiar with children's preferences and their parents' behavior, saw this. He ensured that “Santa Claus Village” was opened outside the city gates. And the story began.

Rovaniemi has only 65,000 inhabitants, but now has the second largest airport in Finland. In the past 25 years, the number of passengers there has more than doubled, while all Finnish airports combined only increased by 30 percent over the same period. The Rovaniemi boom is primarily driven by visitors from abroad, whose number has increased sevenfold. From the local airport statistics you can clearly see when the peak season is. The reindeer sleigh decoration stands between the luggage carousels all year round. But more than a third of all foreign guests come in December alone. There are 42 direct connections this winter, twice as many as in 2023. From Germany there are flights from Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich and Frankfurt to Rovaniemi without a stopover during the high season. The two days with the most takeoffs and landings there are December 23rd and 28th.

The matter is carried out with impeccable professionalism. Especially since the European brand association ECTA granted Rovaniemi the privilege to advertise with the slogan “Home of Santa Claus” a few years ago. At Santa Claus Amusement Park there are more than just reindeer to pet and a Santa Claus post office. Here you can, for example, visit Santa Claus' wife, who is never mentioned in the classic Santa Claus literature. Business acumen is the mother of invention.

The amusement park was carefully built at 66 degrees and 33 minutes north latitude, exactly in the Arctic Circle. That was smart. If you don't allow yourself to be lured by Santa Claus, you may have a sense for geographical peculiarities. In any case, a primitive-looking ceremony was invented especially for the tourists with which they can celebrate crossing the Arctic Circle in the amusement park. Even if the natives, the Sami reindeer herders, whose customs are clearly evident, would never bother with something like that.

The amusement park is not operated by a single large corporation, but rather as a so-called public-private partnership, jointly by the public sector and many small companies that come into play with their respective offers. These can be easily booked in advance via the shared website; the Finns are technically on top of their game. But there is no cheap all-inclusive ticket for all attractions. Instead, the principle “it works out” applies. Admission to Mrs. Santa's room costs 5 euros, a photo with her costs 30 euros, and the Arctic Circle ceremony costs 60 euros.

In Germany, too, there are known addresses to which children write their wish lists before Christmas. Heaven's Gates, Angel's Churches, Saint Nicholas – they all have a more appropriate name for the Finnish Santa Claus City. But they don't really manage to make a business out of it.

This is not just because they miss the Arctic Circle, the reindeer and the northern lights. They also don't come close to matching the Finns' comprehensive marketing presence and self-confident claim to exclusive representation. Not to mention the will to commercialize.

In Germany, children's letters are answered by volunteers. Deutsche Post donates the postage. That warms hearts. In Finland you have to pay. That fills the coffers. A letter from Santa Claus costs nine euros and you can order it online in 13 different languages.

Around 600,000 visitors came to Rovaniemi's Santa Claus amusement park last year. In total, the city generated more than 400 million euros from tourism. Converted to the number of inhabitants, it is more than any other Finnish city, only a few winter sports villages have higher values. For 2024, Sanna Kärkkäinen, the managing director of the tourist association, expects an increase of 10 to 20 percent. “I have never seen so many tourists in the city as I do today,” she reports on the phone. There are mainly British, French and Spanish people there at the moment, but also Germans and Americans. The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, China and India follow further down the list of countries of origin.

Kärkkäinen says she sees no signs that the Santa Claus tourism trend will weaken in the foreseeable future. On the contrary, it is obviously becoming a tradition in some foreign families to come to Rovaniemi around Christmas year after year.

Neither interest nor ability to pay appear exhausted. The capacity, however, is reaching its limits. The average price for a room in Rovaniemi was most recently 142 euros per night in December. This is more than twice as much as the Finnish year-round average. At the same time, the city's accommodations were officially at 104 percent capacity. “Some landlords may have improvised a place to sleep in their sauna,” Sanna Kärkkäinen tries to explain the fabulous rate. For them, the big task is clear in view of these numbers: it's about promoting the other eleven months of the year.

Because many hotels in Santa Claus Land are empty, especially in summer. This could be liveable if it did not deter donors from investing in the construction of new accommodation, which is so urgently needed for the Christmas and winter seasons. There is talk of three hotel projects that will provide around 1,000 additional beds.

The Finns have many ideas about how they want to attract tourists in July and August. Perhaps it is precisely the most absurd approach that leads to success. “Our Santa Claus works all year round,” says Sanna Kärkkäinen cheerfully. Because it never gets really hot in Lapland, there are no changes to the dress code even in midsummer; The red coat remains mandatory for the amateur actors, T-shirts and shorts are taboo. However, the prices change. From May to September, two hours with Santa Claus, the private audience at the reindeer farm, only costs 360 euros instead of 1,500 euros.