region of 188,000 lakes or to one of the largest seacoast archipelagos in the world. Finnish sauna is a big part of our culture and our wellbeing traditions, so when visiting Finland learning about Finnish sauna is a must. There are three million saunas in the country and although most of them are private there are plenty of opportunities to explore Finnish sauna culture.
Is it an easy country to explore? Finland has an excellent public transportation network of local and long-distance buses and trains as well as trams and the metro in Helsinki. There are domestic flights from Helsinki to four airports in Lapland year round with a flight time of about 1.5 hours. During the summer, a good road network and plenty of daylight makes it easy to drive around, although I wouldn’t recommend renting a car in the winter unless the driver is very experienced in snow conditions.
What do you do to help the U.S. travel trade and is there anything new for 2022 that it should look out for? Our consumer-facing website (visitfinland.com) is a great source of inspiration for anyone, but Visit Finland also has a website for the travel trade (businessfinland.fi), which contains practical information and tools including an extensive image bank, newsletter and e-learning program for 2022. There are also training webinars, meet-the-buyer events and ‘fam’ trips for selected buyers. Developing sustainable travel is one of our key focus areas and Visit Finland has launched a Sustainable Travel Finland program to educate and encourage Finnish suppliers to develop their services according to our sustainability criteria. The list of the companies that have already received the Sustainable Travel Finland label can be found on our trade website and we are keen to support and encourage business with them.
Visit Finland North America promotes travel to Finland from the U.S. The tourist office features a range of resources to educate and support individual travelers and the travel trade.