Radio | News week in plain Finnish | Sunday 4 August 2024

Santa Claus in the summer

Here is Uutisviikko in plain Finnish and Pertti Seppä. The topic of the news week this time is Santa Claus. Many tourists from Finland and abroad travel to Rovaniemi because they want to meet Santa Claus. This is also the case in summer. Now we will tell you more about tourism in Lapland and Santa’s summer guests.

Santa Claus and summer

Santa receives guests in Rovaniemi, Lapland. This is the case every day of the year, even in summer.

During the summer, around 200 families or groups visit Santa every day. Sometimes there are 5 tourist buses at the same time, but sometimes it’s quieter, says Veera Kunnari from Santa’s chamber’s customer service.

Kunnari says that Santa Claus also interests foreign tourists in the summer. The Christmas atmosphere in the middle of summer is exciting and a bit strange, but interesting.

Santa and winter

More than 500,000 tourists visit Rovaniemi every year. Most of them come in winter.

In winter, many thousands of guests visit Santa Claus every day. That’s when Santa Claus’s village is crowded.

Last Christmas in Santa’s village, queue numbers were distributed to people who wanted to meet Santa Claus. However, there were days when Santa did not have time to meet all the guests.

Tourists have returned to Lapland after the corona period. Rovaniemi and other parts of Lapland are again visited by many tourists from, for example, Asia. For them, meeting Santa Claus is often the best moment of the trip.

Santa Claus and a famous guest

Tourism started to develop in Rovaniemi shortly after the Second World War.

In 1950, Eleanor Roosevelt visited Finland. She was the wife of former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

On the way, Mrs. Roosevelt represented the UN, i.e. the United Nations, from which Finland received help after the war.

Eleanor Roosevelt also visited Rovaniemi, and of course she also met Santa Claus there.

Repeat

The topic of the news week was Santa Claus and tourism in Lapland in the summer. Let’s repeat the most important things.

Many tourists also travel to Santa’s village in Rovaniemi in the summer.

In the summer, about 200 families or groups visit Santa Claus a day, but there is not the same rush as in the winter.

The Christmas atmosphere in the middle of summer is especially interesting to foreigners.

The first famous guest of Santa Claus was Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the former President of the USA. He met Santa Claus in 1950.

This was Uutisviikko in plain Finnish, see you again. Goodbye!