Enterprising Dutchman boosts tourism
Barend Braafhart, big-city boy from Rotterdam, was chosen Laplander of the Year for 2002. “We’ve got plenty of space here and can breathe freely”, says “Bart” whose passion for the nature and people of Finnish Lapland has also become his profession. The acclimated Dutchman has lived in the border community of Salla since 1999, where he successfully works with attracting compatriots and other tourists to the area.
Bart’s interest in Europe’s arctic regions was spawned early. As an adventure-loving teenager, his travels steered north for the fi rst time, and since then, he has often visited Sweden and northern Norway, with Lofoten and Nordkap (the North Cape) as principal destinations. Lofoten’s landscape impressed him, but what really captured him during his fi rst visit to Salla in 1978 were the vast and desolate wide-open spaces of Finnish Lapland. He returned for ten summers and seven winters before settling down in Salla four years ago.
“I grew up in Rotterdam, a city with 650,000 inhabitants and the world’s largest port. Rotterdam has 4,000 inhabitants per square kilometre compared to hardly one inhabitant in Salla”, says Bart, a person who loves white expanses, the northern lights and peace and quiet. His passion has also become his profession. As coordinator for the tourist industry in eastern Lapland, his job is to entice visitors from all of Europe to come here, and he’s very familiar with both the territory and the desires of Europeans.
NO HIERARCHY. There is more to Lapland than just nature, though. The people are open, friendly and hospitable. The ability to make people feel at home is very important in the tourist trade. Local people working as waiters, cleaners, reception staff, and those involved with programmes/activities are the ones who supply choices and provide service. “That is why you cannot have a vertical hierarchy, everyone is equally important. When I began work here as a PR man, I started by shovelling snow outside our premises so that visitors would feel welcome”. Many central Europeans take their holiday in August, the English gladly come before Christmas, Russians travel during January, while the Finns head north during winter sport holidays and during ”ruska”, a time when Lapland’s forests are ablaze with autumn colours. However, it’s important to get people to come to the tourist establishments during low season too.
DIRECT FLIGHT AMSTERDAM–KUUSAMO. Bart has been successful in marketing Lapland, and Dutch tourists now predominate in the region around Salla. Finnair and Dutch tour operators recently signed an agreement on direct fl ights between Amsterdam and Kuusamo starting in January 2004. Cooperation is the key to successful tourism operations in Salla, which had 2,250 visitors in the summer of 2002 and about 500 during the winter. “The municipalities up here have to cooperate and not compete. Together we can create a wide choice of offerings since the natural surroundings and specialties vary. Plus, we cater to different target groups”, says Bart.
TEN MILLION READERS. In January, readers of the local newspaper, Lapin Kansas, chose the Dutchman as Laplander of the Year. The victory margin was convincing and common reasons for choosing him were, that he organises Dutch tourism, he believes in the future and he has created much needed employment opportunities in the region. The news even reached the international press, which made Bart hot news in his home country. ”Thirty-two Dutch newspapers published the news, seven radio and TV stations did interviews, and I ended up in the same columns as princesses and celebrities. The news reached about ten million readers in all, and if I were to advertise on the same scale it would have cost close to a million euro”, Bart estimated, well aware of the media’s importance in attracting tourists.
BARENTS ROAD. What then does Barend, obviously equipped with a nose for tourism, think about the Barents Road project? The route runs through Salla and over the border towards Kandalaksha. “I think that fl ights combined with bus or car trips would work well for tourists from the Continent. They can fl y to Rovaniemi or Kuusamo and go on from there for a reasonable price”. He also thinks that dealing with visas to Russia must be simplifi ed to increase the volume of tourism eastward. Currently it is expensive, time consuming, and complicated to get a Russian visa, so a quick visa at the border would increase travel. The quality of hotels, restaurants and service must also be raised, but at some point Bart would of course be interested in arranging three-day excursions into Russian territory, for example. After all, the border is one of Salla’s attractions and this summer the fi rst long-distance buses will be rolling between Kemijärvi and Kandalaksha.
BLACK PETER. Right outside of town is the attraction Sallan Poropuisto (Salla’s Reindeer Park), a 200 ha area where you can become familiar with reindeer and traditional reindeer farming. Grazing with the herd is the Dutchman’s own reindeer, Zwarte Piet (Black Peter), which he managed to buy after a lot of bureaucracy and fuss with both the authorities and Sami villages. In addition, it turned out that the yearly cost to feed the dark beauty is as much as his purchase price. “We’ll get food for Zwarte Piet, and you get tourists to the park”, suggested park staff. Bart agreed and now Zwarte Piet is going to be a book too. The manuscript is finished and the book about the reindeer and Lapland (for readers of all ages) will soon be in print for an international readership. If everything goes as planned, we should soon see many curious tourists at the reindeer corral outside of Salla in Finnish Lapland.
This article was orginally published in the Barents Road Maganzine.