Only 11 hours to London...

S3. Anonymous, 1910s.

Place your order by e-mailing posters / at / cometofinland.fi. Please state the signum S3 and the amount. The bill is then e-mailed to you via PayPal, and it can be paid either by VISA / Master Card or thru your PayPal-account. We ship from Helsinki by Priority Mail usually within 1 day after receiving your payment.

About the poster

When the Finland Steamship Company, which later became one of the shipping companies behind Silja Line, was founded in 1883 there was a grand vision in place for the company. The running of the shipping company was ‘principally in order to achieve a direct steamer connection between England and the ports in the Gulf of Finland‘.

Russia had imposed severe export duties on Finland and the captains of industry realised it was time to turn towards the west in order to survive, both politically and financially. Butter and paper were to be transported, preferably even in the wintertime, which was an enormous challenge.

In order to maximise the utility of the line, these great men also made the somewhat bold move of attracting English tourists through the John Good & Sons agency of Hull. The Finland Steamship Company offered tourists various round trips to Finland via, for instance, Copenhagen. The idea was that the traveller would stay between 10 and 17 days in Finland.

How did they attract the tourists?

With Finland’s unspoiled nature, of course. Finland had not been trampled down by hordes of tourists and was a veritable Eldorado for fishermen and hunters and anyone who appreciated fresh air and plenty of space. It was also clean, cheap and safe.

But being cheap also had other aspects to it. During the annual tourist convention in Helsinki in 1910 the tourists from Britain were discussed and hotelier Wilhelm Noschis addressed his audience thus:

‘It has been mentioned that a tourist will leave behind 100 marks per day, although the hotel take is at the most 25 marks per day. An Englishman is akin to a coupon; he will not pay for anything that has not been fixed and calculated beforehand.’

Well, well. One can anyhow assume that - perhaps - this poster attracted more Finnish travellers going away from Finland than tourist coming to us. The poster is in Swedish, since Finland is a bilingual country, but it is of course a fact that only the really fancy people had the opportunity of travelling.

Hungry for more?

The above text and the poster can be found in the book Come to Finland. It's a quality coffee table book filled with vintage travel posters from Finland – and many travel tales and historical anecdotes. The book is the result of a long and successful cultural history project. You can order the book here.

Back to the Special posters
Or see the full range of posters in our Poster Shop