FINLAND hopes to ease access for mainland Chinese travellers with the setting up of 13 new visa centres across the country.
By spring 2016, new visa centres will open in the cities of Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Jinan, Kunming, Nanjing, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Xi’an. Currently, Finland has application centres in Beijing and Shanghai.
A new stopover service, announced last year, will also be launched by Finnair in partnership with Finnish travel companies by end-March, offering packages to mainland Chinese visitors staying in the country for a period that ranges from five hours to five days.
The new moves are coming on the back of a 40 per cent increase in overnight stays by mainland Chinese visitors to Finland in 2015. Mainland Chinese travellers are already the biggest spenders per visit of all international visitors to the Nordic country.
