Swamp soccer & Snow soccer - World Championships : Case: Attracting Norwegian customers

The commissioner of this thesis is Ski&Sport resort Ukkohalla-Paljakka Oy, located in Hyrynsalmi, who arranges two special sports events every year: Swamp soccer and Snow soccer – World Championships. The primary objective of this thesis is to find out how to attract and to connect to possible new participants from abroad as well as how the events should be implemented and marketed. Target country was selected to be Norway, as Norwegians are a potential customer group for these events. The second purpose of this thesis is to find out which digital marketing channels would be the most beneficial in terms of attracting and acquiring new customers. Theoretical framework covers adventure tourism, today’s experience economy and the main target group of the events, the millennials. Also, social media platforms and trends in digital marketing in tourism are introduced. The research for this thesis is conducted by using literary sources, websites, reports and articles. The empirical part is a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods as it was conducted in a form of a semi-structured online survey. The results from the survey give beneficial suggestions for the commissioner on how to market and implement their events. Additionally, the results offer proposals on how to use and develop their digital marketing in social media, as well as which platforms and ways of marketing they should focus on to attract Norwegian customers. In the future it could be researched whether Ukkohalla’s digital marketing operations were working and if the awareness of the events has increased among Norwegians. It could also be interesting to study this kind research targeting different customer group for example from a different country to see if the results would differ. Additionally, to further develop Ukkohalla’s events and digital marketing, it could be beneficial to benchmark similar kind of events