Finland is suffering from a dearth of tourists, after overnight visits from Russia and east Asia dipped by over a million.
A sleet-strewn Senate square is pretty quiet, when two American tourists arrive pushing a stroller. Soon a bus unloads a group of Japanese tourists at perhaps the most recognisable Finnish tourist spot.
April is the most difficult month for tourism businesses in Finland, and in Helsinki the travel season is yet to start. Expectations, however, are not high this year.
Visitor numbers have collapsed by about a fifth since 2019.
Travellers from Russia and Asia are thin on the ground now. The number of visitors from Russia, China and Japan is down by more than a million from 2019.
That was before the Covid pandemic and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which led to a collapse in visitor numbers from Russia and more…
