Ranua Zoo Hotel

Arctic Wildlife Park is the biggest attraction of Ranua’s tourism industry and its demand keeps growing. The attraction is only an hour drive away from Rovaniemi and an international airport.

Currently, in addition to the zoo, the area has a restaurant and cafe, camping area, holiday village, safari house, Europe’s northernmost winery and small shops.

Johanna Koivunen, Chairman of the Board of Ranuan Seudun Matkailu, which owns Ranua Wildlife Park, states that there’s a need for new accommodation.

– During both seasons, summer and winter, there’s more demand than there’s supply. There’s a need for cosy and compact apartments. Our customers and travel operators wish for them in the area.

Travellers are increasingly interested in Ranua

Ranua Wildlife Park has around 50 different arctic species in their spacious enclosures in the forest. Next to the park, there’s also a domestic animal park and a children’s big adventure playground which are open during summer seasons.

The visitor count has been rising and last year in 2019 the park had 130,300 visitors.

Tourism is an all-year-round business in the area. During the winter seasons, two-thirds of the visitors are international travellers. The customer base has an emphasis on families and the stays have been getting increasingly longer.

Ranua has a shortage of accommodation capacity. When the whole capacity has been combined, there are around a thousand beds. Gulo Gulo holiday village has 30 family apartments and there are 20 glass igloos with saunas next to lake Ranuajärvi. Otherwise, the accommodation capacity consists of a caravan area and some separate cabins.

• Read about Ranua as a travel destination from Visitranua and Ranua Finland webpages

The revenue of Ranuan Seudun Matkailu, which runs the Wildlife Park, camping area and holiday village, has almost doubled in the last four years. Generally, the apartment’s occupancy rate is about 80% for five months of the year and 50-60% at other times. We have numbers to indicate that there’s also potential for new investment, Koivunen says.

– During the  Covid-19 epidemic domestic demand has filled in nicely the international customer flow, which has taken a toll temporarily because of the travel restrictions.

Room for investment next to Wildlife Park

Ranuan Seudun Matkailu owns a lot, which can be rented or bought, next to the park. The sizeable lot has building rights for 4,000 m². Increasing the accommodation capacity is part of the area’s strategy, and it has support from the park, but the execution needs a partner.

Koivunen who’s very familiar with the customer base and growth potential of the area describes the potential hotel concept.

– Wilderness hotel, which would have a direct view into the park, would work nicely in this area. We are prepared to build more enclosures for animals near the hotel so the guests can see, for example, reindeer and Finnish forest deer straight from their hotel room.

The Wildlife Park pursues sustainable wood buildings, which would fit into the area’s character and with the existing buildings.

The new hotel would become a part of the already efficient network and constantly developing area. The adventure playground next to the wildlife park has just recently been renewed and a tourism info spot will be opened in the MurrMurr castle.

Ranuan Seudun Matkailu has an effective sales channel for accommodations and program services and also great connections with tour operators. The company is also ready to operate the new hotel or work as a partner in another way.

The project doesn’t yet have a detailed feasibility study with calculations but the municipality of Ranua and the Wildlife Park have comprehensive background information for the planning.

Project on the map

The map is indicative.