Development of Wedding Themes for the Wedding Town Loviisa
Kehrs, Ute (2013)
Kehrs, Ute
HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu
2013
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2013122622108
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2013122622108
Tiivistelmä
Loviisa is a small town by the sea, located about 87 km east of Helsinki on the way to St. Petersburg and it has recently been named to "The Wedding Town". The aim of this study is to develop wedding themes connected to certain events in Loviisa in order to strengthen Loviisa’s brand as wedding town.
The theoretical scope of the study provides a definition of the tourism product and a discussion of the process of new product development in tourism. Also, a topic on wedding tourism explains the components of a wedding. Further, a comparison of Loviisa and other wedding cities shows that other towns and islands offer mainly lists of wedding services, but no wedding themes or wedding packages. Also included is the history of wedding traditions and customs as well as recent wedding trends to better understand the essence of a wedding. To connect Loviisa events to the wedding themes, various events and locations in Loviisa were visited for familiarisation. Opinions of real brides regarding themed weddings and how they would want their own wedding themes were sought through interviews using a mini questionnaire. All responding brides wanted a tasteful wedding with focus on the happy occasion.
The final product is a careful consideration of themes guided by results of the ques-tionnaire. It includes six wedding theme boards out of an initial ten. They are Winter Wonderland, Spring Fever, Archipelago, Midsummer, Rustic September and Christmas. The themes are interpreted into two versions, the web version, which the customer can access upon first contact and the full version which is available to the customer upon making a final decision to use the product. The single paged web version shows the colour scheme, a few pictures for visualisation of the wedding theme and some general explanation about the theme without mentioning specific sites and companies. The full version is two paged, more detailed and shows more pictures on the first page and an explanation with the chosen venues and service providers on the second page. Adoption of these themes by Loviisa will make it a unique wedding town with a ready to go product and profitability of its tourism related businesses will be boosted.
The theoretical scope of the study provides a definition of the tourism product and a discussion of the process of new product development in tourism. Also, a topic on wedding tourism explains the components of a wedding. Further, a comparison of Loviisa and other wedding cities shows that other towns and islands offer mainly lists of wedding services, but no wedding themes or wedding packages. Also included is the history of wedding traditions and customs as well as recent wedding trends to better understand the essence of a wedding. To connect Loviisa events to the wedding themes, various events and locations in Loviisa were visited for familiarisation. Opinions of real brides regarding themed weddings and how they would want their own wedding themes were sought through interviews using a mini questionnaire. All responding brides wanted a tasteful wedding with focus on the happy occasion.
The final product is a careful consideration of themes guided by results of the ques-tionnaire. It includes six wedding theme boards out of an initial ten. They are Winter Wonderland, Spring Fever, Archipelago, Midsummer, Rustic September and Christmas. The themes are interpreted into two versions, the web version, which the customer can access upon first contact and the full version which is available to the customer upon making a final decision to use the product. The single paged web version shows the colour scheme, a few pictures for visualisation of the wedding theme and some general explanation about the theme without mentioning specific sites and companies. The full version is two paged, more detailed and shows more pictures on the first page and an explanation with the chosen venues and service providers on the second page. Adoption of these themes by Loviisa will make it a unique wedding town with a ready to go product and profitability of its tourism related businesses will be boosted.