Dutch travel agencies' employees' images and expectations of Finland as a travel destination

The objective and main research problem of the thesis was to examine Dutch travel agencies’ employees’ images and expectations of Finland as a travel destination. In addition the study was investigating what are the Dutch travel agencies’ employees’ images based on and what type of travel services would interest them in Finland. The thesis was conducted for a commissioner Green Cap Tours, which is a Finnish tour operator that focuses on sustainable travel services and aims to provide their customers experiences and tours that many of them have not had before. The Dutch travel agencies were chosen as a target group as their employees are in an influencing role when customers make their decisions and therefore investigating their images could give a broader view than focusing on individual consumers. The theoretical framework was gathered from literature, academic articles, and professional websites. It defines the concept of tourism destination, destination image and its formation as well as destination branding. Additionally, the theoretical framework gives an insight of Finland as a tourism destination and shares some statistical information of Dutch tourists’ travel behaviour in Finland. The research method was quantitative and data were collected by an online survey, which was sent as a link to different travel agencies email addresses. The data were collected during ten day period and 28 responses were gathered from different travel companies. The survey consisted mainly of close-ended questions, however there were also two open-ended questions and one Likert-scale question. The data were analysed by using different analysing methods and filtering. The findings indicated that the Dutch travel agencies’ employees based their image mostly on own experience, media sources – especially on social media and to word of mouth. Based on the findings the sample of Dutch travel agencies’ employees had in general an image of Finland as a safe destination with multiple other attractive qualities, however cultural and historical factors were seen slightly less interesting and desirable as the nature elements, which were considered nearly as the backbone of Finland as a travel destination. Moreover, Finland was considered as a winter destination and often associated with Lapland, snow, and winter activities