Russian winter tourism business strategy needs an overhaul

Russia ranks third in the pecking order of winter tourism destinations after Finland & Iceland. Time to look at Finnish operation and tweak her business strategy in winter tourism to optimise returns. Here are few thoughts of mine:

A package in Finnish winter tourism invariably has number of features that give value for money. Known as the ‘the land of a thousand lakes’ Finland has more than 180,000 thousand lakes. True enough not all these are of interest to tourists. But a quite a number of these lakes offer facilities for water sports, swimming in the iced water, safe cruising in boats, ice skating where thick layers of ice covered surface is available and a novel activity of travelling in an ice breaker ship.

Russia so far was preoccupied in promoting Moscow and St. Petersburg as prime showcases for her winter tourism. In fact, it is a promo flash to show in tourism pamphlets about these two cities in winter light. Undoubtedly, both these have historical structures such as magnificent places, halls and churches in their pristine glory. Moreover, it is ever broadcast that winter is the best time to visit Russia. Snow covered lakes, parks, streets and other structures do credit for this assertion.

But the fact remains that beyond the walls of Moscow & St. Petersburg lies the major attraction: lakes containing vast area of ice, snow and the surface to deliver quite a lot of activities in terms of water sports & travel over the lakes. From the Western side Lake Baikal is the closest. Not only this lake is spectacular in appearance but boasts being the oldest, largest and deepest water body in the globe. With an extension of 31,500 sq. km. Lake Baikal remains thickly frozen during the months of January to March each year.

Three significant features in the Finnish agenda are ice skating, cruising and using ice breaker ships to carry passengers allowing them to swim in the iced water pool  that get opened up after the ice breaker traverse over a lake’s surface.

Copy and paste, all three novel tourist related activities over the surface of Lake Baikal could give a big fillip to Russian winter tourism. Therefore I suggest that the Russian government fine-tunes her business strategy in respect of winter tourism by offering ice skating, cruising and travel in icebreaker ships to enjoy swimming in pools of iced water in order to make the trip much more enjoyable for the winter tourists coming to Russia but memorable to the extent that the satisfied ones carry the good word globally. Do you need any more advertisement for Russian winter tourism!

 

Cheers!

 

Muthu Ashraff Rajulu

Business Strategist

Mobile: + 94 777 265677

E-mail: cosmicgems@gmail.com

Blog:   Business Strategist