Abstract:

The city of Lahti offered a site for a new hotel in a city where there was already overcapacity of hotel rooms, and where the prospects of natural growth of tourism did not encourage construction of any new capacity. However, one of the local hotels decided to investigate, if they could find new and untapped potential for some new kind of a hotel, without risking their own profitability. This study required new ways of thinking, and the potentials had to be investigated without many hard facts. By using the services of Finnish Gallup Oy in investigating the wishes of active skiers in Finland, and by contacting several potential partners in many hotel-related fields it was tried to find a market niche, which could be profitable enough for the new hotel and would not threaten the business of the old hotel.