Finnish survey results

Terhi Majamaa, YSAO

Training needs Top 11 ranked by the highest mean value

• How to market your business and develop your product , 3.86• Using computers and the internet for marketing – websites,

search engine optimisation, 3.82 • Financial management: sourcing finance, cash flow, profit and

loss balance sheets, 3.57• Developing a quality customer service, 3.45• Ability to diversify, 3.3• Developing a sustainable rural tourism business, 3.25 • Developing a tourist business which is accessible to all, 3.2• Cultural awareness and foreign languages, 3.19• Legal aspects – finding about regulations, 3.19• Social networking e.g. facebook, LinkedIn, twitter 3.08• Business planning and research, 3.0

Other expressed training needs

• Selling rural tourism accommodation via a joint national or Europe-wide channel.

• What to do when the company is not doing so well. • Being a manager. • Importing equipment and materials and the related issues

involving Customs. • Pulling up the skills in the professional field of the company;

e.g. horse-riding tourism • Safety of the operations (customer safety, food safety etc.)• Short training sessions on subjects where we need to be

current: security certificates, first-aid training, hygiene proficiency certificates, peace officer’s certificates, alcohol certificates

• Training related to projects and financial support systems• Future trensd of tourism

Methods of training

Recommendations

• The findings of the survey show that training in marketing (domestic and international) and product development are needed. Other training areas identified are using computers for online marketing and networking, financial management, legal aspects, cultural awareness and foreign languages and sustainability.

• Training needs to be flexible according to group needs. Training should also be future and customer oriented and a part of training could be distance learning.

• The online WERT community could help to share ideas across Europe and it could be one way of benchmarking. The community can also be a new marketing channel for the participants.

• The respondents who gave their contact details on the questionnaire should be contacted as soon as possible to build the WERT community.

• The Finnish entrepreneurs are willing to make study/benchmarking trips to partner countries. Could we find a way to finance a part of the travel costs?

• An exchange could be initiated. Different work cultures would become familiar, and it wouldn't hurt to learn these things via the practices of different countries.

Discussion topics• Sharing the experiences of good and developing elements, and

learning from the problems of others.

• Joint marketing. This way, it could become easier to get virtually familiar with other rural tourism companies at a European level.

• For us, all of the international entrepreneur colleagues are also part of the potential customer base, but it would be interesting to learn the best sales tricks and attractive features of rural accommodation companies. What methods the companies use to sell their services to the citizens of their own country and to foreigners.

• Which factors have helped the company to reach success after the initial phases.

• It would be interesting to learn about the customer profile of female entrepreneurs in different countries, particularly for the small tourism companies, whether this involves a group or individual tourists, and their service needs, in order to use this information to target the marketing here and develop the services. Networking would bring a lot of information, and interest within the network would increase, generating fresh ideas and customer flow.

• Plans to expand the company and the ways to do so without great financial risk.

• How to start spin-off operations independently and carefully.

• Managing the seasons

• An extended network that consists of different cultures is a key to vivid and innovative culture tourism operations.

• How to capture the senior German-speaking European traveller as a target group.

• International exchanges in crafts training. Tourism – in particular, craft tourism

• without language skills. There are still many people who practise crafts and would like to travel further to learn the techniques of other countries and cultures, but the biggest boundary is the lack of language skills.