Project Description

Visit Finland

“ForwardKeys’ data offers us a fact-based view of the near future: based on flight booking data, we can fairly accurately predict the demand for the upcoming season from different markets.”

Susanne Heikkinen
Analyst at Visit Finland

The background

Enhancing regional tourism opportunities

Visit Finland partners with ForwardKeys to share travel intelligence and insights with all travel trade partners. This collaboration aims to improve regional tourism opportunities across key areas such as the Helsinki Region, Lapland, Lakeland, and the Coast and Archipelago, increasing their attractiveness to visitors and growing annual tourist arrivals. However, it’s not a case of driving growth at all costs — the focus is on attracting the right visitor profile to preserve the beauty and charm of these lesser-known destinations.

The approach

Utilising ForwardKeys’ data for strategic planning

Helsinki, Finland’s capital, has effectively utilised ForwardKeys’ outlook data to better prepare for the upcoming season and optimise the timing and targeting of their marketing and sales activities.

Leena Lassila, Director of Visitor Attraction & Convention Bureau at Helsinki Partners, highlights the significance of ForwardKeys to their partnership collaboration, “For businesses within the “Makers of Helsinki” network, which includes tourism, events, and restaurant sectors, the flight reservation data on the Helsinki Destination Insights platform “DataLokki” is highly valued. This data is instrumental in preparing for the influx of visitors and planning city marketing campaigns.”

The impact

Game-changing insights into traveller trends

Helsinki also serves as a gateway to other Finnish destinations, such as the picturesque Finnish Lakeland and the world’s largest archipelago, which are still relatively unknown to international visitors. Lapland’s various travel destinations have seen increasing numbers of visitors arriving on direct flights.

These visitors tend to stay longer and explore nearby destinations, contributing to the sustainable growth of tourism in the region. All these destinations primarily depend on international travellers arriving by air — making the air ticketing data provided by ForwardKeys a game-changer for these regions.

The outcome

Tourism planning — backed by facts

By combining ForwardKeys’ travel intelligence platform, Destination Gateway, and Connect data smarts, Finnish destinations can confidently plan for the future of travel. This data-driven approach ensures informed decision-making and strategic planning.

As Susanne Heikkinen comments, the value of the solution lies not only in its capability but also in its ease of use: “We have been using ForwardKeys data for a long time already. We started with Nexus in 2017 and have now continued with Destination Gateway, which our account managers and country representatives can use because of the great visuals and easy-to-use interface.”

“For example,” she adds, “bookings for scheduled flights for summer 2024 have increased by 14 per cent compared to last year, although the booking situation fluctuates somewhat depending on the time of travel. Capacity data, on the other hand, gives an indication of tourism export opportunities from an accessibility perspective. We have appreciated the excellent customer care ForwardKeys offers and their eagerness to further develop their tools and platforms by listening to customer feedback.”

Download our brochure

Download our brochure for more information on the specifications of our products and data packages.

Request a demo

REQUEST