The autumn holiday season seems to have become the third season alongside the skiing and winter holiday season, according to Lomarenka, which sells holiday homes.
Rising Vaccine coverage seems to have encouraged Finns to book holiday trips at least during the school holiday seasons.
“It’s very full of whether to say that,” says tour operator Tuin’s communications manager Laura Aaltonen. There are only a few scattered places left for holiday flight-based trips during the autumn holiday season.
According to Laura Aaltonen, Tui does not yet organize trips to distant destinations during the schoolchildren’s autumn holidays.
Scheduled flights to some city destinations are still available. According to Aaltonen, the number of new bookings has increased week by week during the autumn.
However, the number of trips available is not yet at the level of a normal year, Aaltonen emphasizes. About half of the number of a normal year is available for holiday destinations, as Tui does not yet arrange trips to long-haul destinations during the autumn holiday season.
For example, you will only be flown to Thailand by Tui for Christmas. Flights to Thailand were originally scheduled to begin as early as November, but Tui decided in late September to cancel early winter flights due to corona restrictions.
Read more: Tui travel agency canceled flights to Thailand until mid-December
Although more and more people dare to go abroad again, travel bookings also show indications of the popularity of domestic tourism.
In the reservations of Lomarenka, which sells holiday homes, the autumn holiday season seems to have become the third cottage season alongside summer, skiing and winter holidays, says the business director Juha Purhonen.
“Last year was quite exceptional. That’s when we doubled our October bookings from the previous year. We are now at the pace of last year, ”says Purhonen.
“Of course, we hope this will remain a permanent phenomenon.”
The holiday ring lists almost 4,000 privately owned holiday homes. Reservations for the autumn holiday season have come evenly all over Finland, but there are two different main types of destinations.
There are plenty of holiday homes in the vicinity of tourist centers such as Levi, Ruka, Vuokatti, Tahko and Ylläs. According to Purhonen, these are sought after for the recreational opportunities offered by the centers, such as mountain biking, hiking trails or downhill skiing.
The other half of the clientele seems to rely on traditional cottages by the water.
Last winter was a record good for Lomarenka, and the company is now 25 percent ahead of the situation a year ago in advance sales for next winter.
Sun travel through the autumn holiday trips have been busy, says the communications manager Mari Kanerva.
“For some time now, there have been only a few places left for the most popular times and destinations.”
The next week, which is an autumn holiday week in the Helsinki metropolitan area, for example, is especially popular.
Kanerva says that until the end of the summer, people only booked trips very close to the day of departure, but the demand for next winter’s trips has been brisk for a long time.
The most popular destinations for sunbathing during the winter season are Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Dubai and Krabi and Phuket in Thailand.
“Finns have now left to travel to fairly familiar destinations, which were traveled long before the corona. We want to return to these now, ”says Kanerva.
The metropolitan area in addition, the autumn holidays of schools in Tampere, Jyväskylä and Joensuu, for example, will take place next week.
This week, the autumn holidays of schools are celebrated in Turku, for example. In Oulu, Lappeenranta, Lahti and Pori, the school autumn holidays are scheduled for the last week of October.
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