Turku Regatta may not attract targeted tourists due to weather | Yle News

In 2017, Turku hosted the regatta and welcomed 500,000 visitors, but given the weather conditions this year, this number is unlikely to be achieved.

Sailing Competition Turku station is expected to fall short of its target of 500,000 visitors, mainly due to rainy weather in the first few days.

According to the event coordinator Kim Mo Shep Paa total of 120,000 visitors arrived in the first two days, including 30,000 visitors on rainy Thursday and 90,000 visitors on Friday.

“We had several days of unstable rain, which we’ve only had once in the past 30 years,” Hyyppä said.

The final visitor numbers are difficult to predict halfway through the event, but Hyyppä estimates that they will be around 400,000, 100,000 fewer than expected. However, he expects good numbers on Saturday, noting that there will be tens of thousands of people along the riverbank in the morning.

Two weeks ago, Helsinki’s sailing regatta attracted more than 400,000 visitors over four days, using lidar scanning and smart cameras to count the total. Turku tried a similar approach, but because the race stretches three kilometers along both sides of the Aura River, traditional counting is still necessary.

“Things are looking good,” Hyyppä said after counting 400 people entering the main gate in five minutes.

In 2017, the Turku Regatta set a record with more than 500,000 visitors.

There are six host ports participating in the 2024 event, three of which are in Finland. In addition to Helsinki and Turku, Mariehamn in the Åland Islands will host the event next weekend.

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