Helsinki Launches WeChat Helsinki Mini Program to Serve Chinese Tourists

On 15 Feb 2018, the WeChat Helsinki Mini Program was launched during the Helsinki’s Spring Festival Temple Fair. Jan Vapaavuori, the Mayor of Helsinki, and Shu Zhan, General Manager of Tencent Tourism, firmly launched the program in Helsinki. The Mini Program is the outcome of the cooperation between Tencent, the leading Chinese internet server, and Helsinki, and offers information of Helsinki in Chinese to about 1 billion WeChat users.

WeChat Helsinki Mini Program Launching Opening A New Era of Overseas Intelligence Tourism

On 19 Sep 2017, the World Tourism Cities Federation Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit was hosted in Los Angeles, USA. During the Summit, Tencent, World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) and Helsinki signed a tripartite cooperation agreement to cooperate and launch overseas intelligence tourism pilot project.

WeChat Helsinki Mini Program Launching Ceremony (Shoot by Wei Zhou)

On 15 Feb. 2018, WeChat Helsinki Mini Program was firmly established. It enables users to get the information in tourism, service, events and transportation of Helsinki more conveniently. It includes functions such as: recommendation of Helsinki’s landscapes, calendar and introductions of Helsinki’s whole year’s events, local cuisine recommendation, shopping guide and ways to get coupons, and introduction to the local’s transportation system. The program also contains Helsinki’s panoramic photo album, intelligent translation service and one click for help functions. The combination of Helsinki’s most reliable tourism information and Tencent technology advantage provides Chinese overseas travelers with a platform for making their own travel plans and reduced outbound tourism barriers.

Helsinki Uses Open Data Resources to Push Digital Tourism to New Heights

As one of the pioneer city in open data resources, Helsinki closely cooperate with Tencent to push forward the development of tourism-related applications. Helsinki will use the open data resources including database of landscapes, activities and services to build an application offering users comprehensive, professional and practical information and services.

Since 2009, Helsinki has been systematically planning to use open data to facilitate private sectors in gaining public information. This makes Helsinki as the model city for open data, it can enhance the transparency in public administration, create new digital practice and provide opportunities for software developers to design new consuming products. The open data includes medium and long term statistics, precise location data and real-time transportation information. The data can be used for increasing life quality, and motivating deeper engagements. In the cooperation with Tencent, the combination of the open data and Tencent feature product will be fully used to provide better experience for Chinese travelers and Helsinki tourism.

Jan Vapaavuori, the Mayor of Helsinki, and Shu Zhan, General Manager of Tencent Tourism, firmly launched the Program in Helsinki. (Shoot by Kari Rosenborg)

“The strategic goal of Helsinki is to become the pioneer digitalized city in future. We want to become to the safest and most functional tourism destination offering the best experience for tourists. After the launching of the program, we are able to share information about Helsinki with millions of Chinese friends, to build a sharable localized experience.” said by Jan Vapaavuori, the Mayor of Helsinki.

“This is Tencent's first pilot project in overseas smart tourism cities. The project offers Chinese outbound tourists a better service with more comprehensive and practical information sharing. It also build a platform for overseas tourism destinations to better display their cities charms. Helsinki wants to create more customized travel experience for Chinese tourists which makes the partnership with Tencent is the right choice.” said by Shu Zhan, General Manager of Tencent Tourism.

In the near future, interactive maps and public transport route planning functions will be added in the WeChat Helsinki Mini Program. In the future, the program will also be developed to add a function to allow the purchase of mobile bus electronic tickets, as well as the intelligent translation in written and spoken Chinese and Finnish, and to test the integration of WeChat payment for some services.

Finnair Launches Direct Flights Connecting China Increases Helsinki popularity among Chinese tourists

There are around 40 direct flights per week between Helsinki and 7 major cities in China. Because of this extremely convenient transportation condition, Helsinki has an advantage in opening up China's tourism market.

In recent years, Helsinki has become increasingly popular among Chinese tourists. The number of Chinese tourists registering in Helsinki has more than doubled in the past five years. In 2017, the number of Chinese tourists in Helsinki increased by 29.3 over the previous year, totaling 135,000 tourist arrivals.

China is the largest outbound tourism market in the world. The cooperation between Helsinki and Tencent has groundbreaking created a channel for the Finnish capital to be directly connected with WeChat users. To be the most digitalized city in the world is the goal of Helsinki, and the partnership with Tencent marks the city's emergence as one of the world's leading innovators in digital travel services.

In 2014, Helsinki joined WTCF, which has its headquarters located in Beijing. This valuable membership allowed Helsinki to expand its business in China and develop important cooperation opportunities. Helsinki will be the host for WTCF Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2019. Beijing and Helsinki have been sister cities since 2006.