From shuttle traders to middle-class consumers: Russian tourists in Finnish newspaper discourse between the years 1990 and 2014

ABSTRACT

The “eastern tourist,” as a reference category to the visitors from Russia, has been a recurring feature in Finnish newspapers. Focusing on the leading Finnish national daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, this article explores how representations of Russian tourists as consumers have been changing in the Finnish mass media since the beginning of the 1990s until 2014. The article considers tourists as a discursive category, thereby introducing a discourse analysis approach to tourism studies. Three periods are differentiated: firstly, during the 1990s (when visitors from Russia were represented as “shuttle traders” bringing problems and disturbing social order in Finland); secondly, from the end of the 1990s until 2014 (when the newspaper discourse emphasized the economic gains from the Russian tourists and investigates peculiarities and ambiguities of their taste. At the time, Russian visitors were represented as middle-class tourists); thirdly, around the year 2014 (when the Russians were portrayed as the middle class with declining purchasing power and limited ability to travel, which brought loses in Finland). The analysis allowed us to observe how images of Russian tourists changed in the context of the evolving consumer culture in Russia and the neoliberal shift in the Finnish mass-media discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Russian tourists
• discourse analysis
• cross-border shopping
• Finland

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Statistical data from the State Agency of Tourism (http://www.russiatourism.ru/contents/statistika/statisticheskie-pokazateli-vzaimnykh-poezdok-grazhdan-rossiyskoy-federatsii-i-grazhdan-inostrannykh-gosudarstv/kolichestvo-grazhdan-rossiyskoy-federatsii-vyekhavshikh-za-rubezh/) confirms the following cycles in the amount of Russian tourists in Finland. Between the years 2000 and 2013, the number of outgoing visitors from Russia to Finland grew except for the year 2009, during which the amount of tourists declined due to the economic crisis. In 2014, the number of trips again declined by 8% in comparison to the previous year. According to the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism, Finland ranked as the top destination for outgoing trips in 2013–2014. With regard to shopping, Global Blue Oy (http://localservices.globalblue.com/fi_su/local-news/myyntitilastot-marraskuu-2014-tax-free-shopping/) also indicates the decline in the Russian spending by 43% in November 2014 in comparison to November 2013. However, tax returns for Russians comprises 83.5% out of all purchases in Finland (11% were returns to Chinese citizens).

2. The Finnish language archive of Helsingin Sanomat stores all the articles published from 1990. The international archive of the newspaper (International Edition) stores the articles published in September 1999–October 2012. We do not compare the international version of the newspaper, with its local counterpart.

3. As Harvey (2005, p. 2) writes, neoliberalism is first and foremost a theory of economic and political practices according to which the needs for individual wellbeing are met the best by developing private property rights, free market and reducing the restrictions on trade and consumption. Based upon these ideas, Clarke and Newman (2007) argue that the neoliberal discourse stresses the logics of market capitalism in all spheres of life, often substituting the category of “citizen” with that of “consumer”.

4. In 1987–1988 only 2% of Russian citizens were living on less than 4 dollars per day (purchasing parity power). Whereas in 1993–1995 the amount of people with a daily income of less than 4 dollars per day increased to 50% (74 million people) (Kalabekov, 2013). According to Goskomstat (http://www.gks.ru/), in 2013, the average monthly income in Russia was approximately 24,899.30 rubles (around 780 dollars).

5. According to statistical data, there were 200,000 Russians travelling to South-East Finland in 1992 and 1993. In 1999 and 2000, the number of Russian visitors rose to 900,000 and 1.1 million, respectfully.

6. Beliaeva (2000, 45) distinguishes between small and medium business owners who constitute the “old” middle class (the social class of property owners and bourgeoisie) and the so-called new middle class that consists of qualified professionals, creative workers, mid-level managers, intelligentsia, civil servants and white collar workers. With the development of a multi-sectorial economy, small businessmen working in the shadow sector were included into the middle class in the post-Soviet Russia. At the end of the 1990s, the middle class in Russia constituted, according to different estimations, 10% of the whole population.

7. This is important since in the 1990s and the early 2000s an average income in Russia was so modest that there was little money left even for the purchase of daily consumer goods. For instance, the average wage in 2003 was only 164 euros with every forth Russian living below poverty rate. The gap between the extremely rich and extremely poor was tremendous, and those belonging to the middle class had a monthly income of only approximately 300 euros (per person) (Parkkonen, 2003a).

Additional information

Funding

We thank the Academy of Finland and Kone Foundation for financial support.