Too little cooperation in sports tourism in Rauha and Ukonniemi

Cooperation between Rauha and Ukonniemi sports tourism operators is limited and unorganized.

This was the result Jaakko Jäppinen in his final thesis of the YAMK degree in business administration. Jäppinen works at Imatra Base Camp Oy (IBC) in sports and exercise tourism.

Jäppinen's employer was the client of the thesis. For the research, he interviewed 11 sports tourism operators from Imatra and Lappeenranta. 

− The customer experience of a sports and exercise tourist always consists of the sum of the services of independent operators who are independent of each other. If sports and exercise tourism is to be developed, the cooperation of this entire network of actors is required. If you want to manage sports and exercise tourism, you have to coordinate the activities of the network, says Jäppinen and continues:

- I tried to find out if we are doing the right things or if we should try to influence the whole more.

Ukonniemi is one of the development targets of Imatra's urban strategy.

According to the thesis, IBC does not have sufficient mandates to work for the benefit of the entire region.

- The interviewees' development ideas about cooperation require a central actor and a clear strategy for cooperation. It can be IBC or someone else, Jäppinen states.

According to him, significant development will not take place until the municipalities see the development of the area as a whole.

Based on the results and the literature, Jäppinen developed a five-step road map for sports tourism in the Rauha-Ukoniemi region.

- The thesis gives a good overall picture of the current state of sports tourism in the region and the development needs. We will use this to our advantage in the future, at least in renewing what we do, CEO of IBC Jukka Aallikko says.

This article is related to the residents' appendix 1/2023 of the city of Imatra, which was published on Sunday, February 26.2. Between the news year. Read the attachment in its entirety from this link.