Russian tourists have changed to domestic tourists at the Imatra Spa. However, old debts weigh on you.
The Imatra Kylpylä parking lot is almost full on Thursday morning.
Inside the spa hotel, vacationers head for breakfast. Morning frogs can already be seen in the pools.
The operation of Imatra Spa has been changing in recent years, first due to the corona pandemic, then due to the war started by Russia in Ukraine.
The corona affected more than the war
According to Harri Hirvelä, the corona pandemic and the restrictions it brought were a bigger change for the spa than the start of the war.
Tomorrow, Friday, it will be exactly one year since the start of the war. A year ago at the spa, that is, the hope that the exceptional times would soon be over.
– At the start of the war, the idea arose that the normalization of tourism would move forward by at least a couple of years, Hirvelä recalls.
He describes the last few years as a kind of return to the 1990s, when Russian tourists did not smooth out the seasonal fluctuations of domestic tourism.
– Before the pandemic, international and demand from the St. Petersburg area filled the gaps when Finns did not travel, says Hirvelä.
According to Hirvelä, January in particular is difficult in the spa industry, because Finns don’t travel much, but wait for the winter holidays. In addition to seasonal changes, the spa has seen a general increase in prices.
– For example, in January we had layoffs in case we were able to adapt to the number of customers we actually have here, Hirvelä says.
What about the future?
According to Hirvelä, the spa has made its budget in recent years based on domestic tourism, and the operation has not been counted on Russian tourists.
According to Hirvelä, the demand for spas also reflects the fact that Finns began to travel domestically during the corona period.
He looks to the future with hope.
– It seems that, based on advance bookings, we are reaching last year’s level and this year’s budget would be realized without Russian customers, says Hirvelä.
He believes that there will be a significant number of Finnish tourists at the spa even in a year’s time. He does not believe that Russian tourists will return within a year.
Old loans as a burden
Although the spa says that the booking situation looks good, the maturing of the loans taken out in the early 2000s raises concerns.
The newspaper Uutisvuoksi reported yesterday, Wednesday, that the Imatra Spa and the South Karelia Rehabilitation Foundation, which owns the spa, have offered the city of Imatra the opportunity to buy the spa’s wet facilities.
With the money received from the sale, the spa would pay off loans taken out in the early 2000s, which are due in 2023–2024 and which, according to the spa, the city has guaranteed with around 1.5 million euros.
The spa would pay the city a fair rent for the premises and would also give the city the option to build a swimming hall in connection with the spa.
There has also been news about possible pool department deals before from the point of view that the city of Imatra could buy premises if the city’s new swimming hall was built in connection with the spa. However, the offer that has come up now is not tied to the city’s swimming hall decisions.
The spa expects the city council to discuss the offer at its meeting on March 13.
*You can discuss the topic until 23:00 on February 24 at Yle Tunnus.*