Is Helsinki Asia's new gateway to Europe?

The importance of technology has spiked multiple fold in the recent past, with its impact visible across all sectors, be it tourism, finance or even transport. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that cities like Finland capital Helsinki have chosen to mould themselves into or as as ambassadors of digital tourism services.

In 2017, the City of Helsinki had signed an agreement with China-based Tencent Holdings to serve as an intelligent tourism model for Chinese outbound tourism. Since then, both parties have been working closely to develop a destination mini program that offers travel information.

As per a report that appeared on Travel Daily Asia, the two parties last week launched the WeChat Helsinki mini program, as part of the city's Chinese New Year celebrations, which would offer Helsinki travel information in Chinese to almost one billion WeChat users.

While the move is much appreciated in the shift to digitisation of tourism, it may be noted that this marks Helsinki's entry into the vast Asian market, thereby cementing itself as the key transit point for Chinese tourists travelling between Asia and Europe.

While this is Tencent's first project, the Finnish capital aims to further work with the Chinese internet major to further develop the application.

Furthermore, being a pioneer in open data resources, Helsinki envisions an application that provides users with comprehensive, professional and real-time information and services.