Sport Tourism in Lahti and Lahti region

The commissioner of this thesis is Lahti Region Ltd. The objective of this thesis was to study basics of sport tourism, sport tourism marketing and especially active sport tourism in Lahti region. Travelling and sport tourism is growing business area in Finland, however it was quite difficult to find literature, source material and numeric data concerning sport tourism in Finland. Lahti has strong reputation as a sport city, although it is not well-known sport tourism destination. The aim was to discover sport tourism in Lahti and Lahti region and how to develop the area more attractive sport tourism destination. The main goal was to find out all the sporting facilities, sport related products and services in the region for active sport tourist and also discover the possible existing cooperation between the operators. Active sport tourism is only marginally researched phenomenon, at least in Lahti and Lahti region, therefore phenomena that does not have an in-depth understanding is usually exam-ined with qualitative methods which was also chosen for the research method for this study. The research approach is deductive based on extensive theory, which is supported by interviews of experts in sport branch. The methodological approach in this research is a case study. For data collection semi-structured interviews were used where the respondent were intentionally selected. This thesis was written between August 2014 and March 2015. The key findings of this study exposed that there are good possibilities and facilities for an active sport tourist around the year in Lahti and Lahti region including some sport-related services and products. However, Lahti cannot be considered as an active sport tourism destination, because people come to do leisure activities at the area of Lahti only if they are aware of the sports supply by themselves. Active sport tourists are mainly from the Finnish metropolitan area. For a foreign tourist it is hard to find activities in Lahti due to lack of information even in English. The company Lahti Region Ltd manages the marketing of the city of Lahti and Lahti region. The focus of the company is to increase the attractiveness of the region, to bring more residents and tourists to the area and increase the jobs in service sectors. It indicates that the goal of Lahti Region Ltd is to get new residents to Lahti area. To improve the attractiveness of the city of Lahti and Lahti region the general opinion was to commercialize the sports and the sports premises in Lahti and Lahti region by building even stronger image around the sports. Branding could be the key to get Lahti to be better known amongst the active sport tourists all over the world. With a clear vision, hard work, well-organized cooperation and right focused marketing, it is possible to make Lahti and Lahti region a world known destination for active sport tourism