#ulapland

Christmas and Rovaniemi as a Christmas Destination:

My Possible Previous Experiences of Rovaniemi as an All-year-around Christmas Destination

As for possible previous experiences of Rovaniemi as an all-year-around Christmas destination, I moved to Rovaniemi in 2016 for my tourism studies. It has been two years now, going on three years, so that I can almost call myself a Rovaniemi local. Back in 2016 when I moved to Rovaniemi, I knew and had known Rovaniemi as a tourist destination for its harsh cold winter and its mostly winter tourism attractions, especially for the Santa Claus office, which is opened all-year-around and visited by tourists coming from all parts of the world, including locals as well. Also, I have familiarised myself with other attractions such as SantaPark and the Arktikum Museum. 

I had some experience in the tourism industry and had gained some general knowledge. Still, I remain very enthusiastic about discovering more about the environmental aspects, like sustainability and carbon footprints, and globalisation, although I have learnt quite a lot at least for the past two years from my study programme. For example, I have visited most of Rovaniemi sightseeing places and tourist attractions, such as Santa Claus’ office, SantaPark, Artikum and the Rovaniemi shopping malls and so on for half a dozen times or more along with groups of tourists when I worked as a tourist guide in 2015 at Loma Vietonen holiday village located in about 30 km away from Rovaniemi city centre. Those tourists were mostly French. Additionally, in my first year, I did my fieldwork in SantaPark as an elf. As an elf, I was delighted to help Santa in handling the thousands of letters pouring in from around the world. Moreover, I was pleased to maintain the magic atmosphere of SantaPark, especially for the children, I had to make sure that children had the most significant experience of their lives in SantaPark.