Local Residents´ Perceptions of Christmas in Helsinki for City Brand Development

This thesis was commissioned by Helsinki Marketing, the city marketing company of Helsinki. The aim of Helsinki Marketing and its city marketing includes reinforcing the pride of the locals in relation to Helsinki, improving the availability and attractiveness of the experiences and services offered in Helsinki while increasing the appeal and recognition of Helsinki as a place. In regards to the commissioner´s goals, the purpose of this thesis is to explore what the local residents consider typical for the Christmas in Helsinki and how they would like to develop it further. The aim of the research orientated thesis is to gather deeper knowledge about what are local residents´ opinions about the Christmas in Helsinki and how they would like to see it developed so that Helsinki Marketing can take the residents´ perspective into consideration in their future development projects. The theoretical framework includes basics of marketing and place marketing as an introduction to more covered topic of branding and place branding, city image, thematic branding and residents´ role in place branding. In addition Christmas in Finland is being discussed together with Christmas events in Helsinki and abroad. The thesis was implemented by mainly quantitative online questionnaire complemented by qualitative methods. The survey was executed between 10th and 21st of April 2017 and the survey was answered by 174 residents of Helsinki. The results of the questionnaire were analysed by both descriptive statistics and content analysis accompanied by cross-tabulation. The results of the survey show that the timing of Christmas should follow the traditional Christmas season. The most typical aspects of Christmas in Helsinki were Christmas Street, Christmas markets and Christmas lights, decorations and tree. The previous Christmas sea-sons in Helsinki were perceived as traditional, welcoming and plain whereas the respondents would like to see them as welcoming, joyful and versatile. In addition more diverse events and services were wished for the upcoming Christmas seasons. The recommendations are based on the results of the survey and focused on the development of the events and service offerings especially at the end of the Christmas season. Attention was also given to collaborations and co-operations regarding the Christmas events in Helsinki