Accommodation available - you might get an invitation to visit Karelia

The Biathlon World Cup event starts a campaign that attracts relatives, friends and colleagues of North Karelia to the village for the duration of the event.

First the good news: guests of the Biathlon World Cup have better accommodation than before, even though ticket sales have progressed as in previous years.

The teams, media representatives, part of the public and, for example, representatives of the International Biathlon Union stay mostly in hotels in the center of Joensuu. Joensuu's central hotels are expected to be completely full this year as well, and a large part of the public will be staying outside of Joensuu.

─ Some of the hotels in the center of Joensuu still have free rooms. Our estimate is that more race guests than before will find accommodation through online services that offer home accommodation, such as Airbnb and Tori.fi, which have become popular in recent years, says Heikki Hamunen of the Kontiolahti Sportsmen's Association.

The organizer also offers homestays the opportunity to present their offerings. Homestayers can go to the event's website to fill out a form, through which the accommodation offer is publicly visible.

The village campaign invites colleagues, relatives and friends

Then more news: The event has launched an invitation campaign, which you can invite your own relatives, friends and colleagues to the village in North Karelia for the World Cup events.

—For example, you can invite the cousin you haven't seen face to face for a long time. Or the object of his crush, who has not yet had the courage to ask him to visit his home. With the Games, those invited have several good reasons to come on a village trip to North Karelia.

Invitation generator: Promises personalized invitations

By offering homestays and inviting guests, the people of North Karelia get to participate in the construction of the event.

—Presenting an invitation to visit is the best regional marketing, which reminds us of North Karelian hospitality.

In the Invite a friend to the village campaign, you can send a standard invitation in your language or a personalized invitation created by an invitation generator via the website.

In the invitation generator, invitees add words aimed at the person they invite, which the generator places in the invitation that spreads via e-mail.

Check out the invitation generator at this address.

—The goal is that both inviters and invitees find the new technology easy and attractive. If the experiences are good at the March event, it is easy to develop the service for the November 2020 and November 2021 events as well, says Hamunen.

INFO: ACCOMMODATION & SHOOTING WORLD CUP

• See our accommodation tips
• As in many other Biathlon World Cup events, the accommodation places offered right near the stadium sell out the fastest. For example, within an hour's drive, there are accommodation options all over the province, for example in the direction of Koli and around Pielinen, in Ilomantsi and south and west of Joensuu.
• One option is to think about homestay. Suitable channels for searching for accommodation are Airbnb, tori.fi and the homestay destinations on our accommodation page.
• You can participate in the Invite a Friend to the Village campaign at this address.