Is a sauna for you a hot room that produces a sweat before a refreshing swim, a peaceful place to relax, a venue for social interaction or something which has yet to be experienced? For companies producing sauna solutions sauna is the source of endless innovation.
Could sauna be the launch pad for surprising and innovative business? Risto Harvia, Managing Director of Harvia Oy, one of the world's leading manufacturers of sauna heaters, answers in the affirmative.
"You have to remember that taking a sauna means many things to many people. In Asia, for example, steam baths are popular. Infrared saunas, too, are growing in popularity. Others prefer a heater that is always ready," Harvia explains. He stresses that for companies in the sauna branch the emphasis on wellness is generating new opportunities for innovation: colour therapy, relaxing audio landscapes, extra oxygen in the sauna...
In partnership with the University of Jyväskylä Harvia Oy has studied new innovations in wellness technology in an effort to develop its business. Product development at Harvia provides work for 15 people, whose task is to constantly come up with something new.
Nowadays solely at the heart of the sauna, the heater, there is plenty of choice. An electric or wood-burning stove? A small powerful heater or a large stone heater? Or how about a slab of soapstone instead of the usual sauna stones?
"Wireless remote control can be used nowadays to manage the heater as well as the lighting and ventilation in the sauna. The aim is to put the level of equipment in saunas on a par with decoration in the rest of the home," Risto Harvia continues.
In line with current trends energy efficiency is a factor increasing in importance where saunas are concerned too. For instance the new infrared saunas are clearly more energy-friendly than the traditional sauna.
Managing Director Harvia reveals that at Harvia Oy considerable thought is being given to ways of storing energy in something other than stone. Less energy would then be needed to generate heat.
For Harvia the best markets, in addition to Finland, are in the area covered by the old Soviet Union. In deeply-rooted sauna cultures there are many people who demand a great deal from their sauna and are also prepared to make the necessary investment.
In Harvia's view Asia is a growing market. Thanks to hotels, fitness clubs and corporate hospitality suites sauna culture is beginning to spread into private homes. Harvia set up its own sauna factory in Southern China five years ago. "If we didn't have a presence right there on the spot, we would soon get trampled on by local manufacturers."
The Finnish sauna enjoys long traditions, but also incorporates some of the very latest innovations. Taking a sauna is essentially a question of personal preference: be it long and slow relaxation at a summer cottage, or a quick blast of steam after an evening run.
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Central Finland wants to be the spiritual home of Finnish sauna. Making good on the promise involves taking the productization of sauna equipment and services to a new level. It also necessitates that sauna, so familiar to the Finns, can be made to generate novel, even surprising, service innovations.
"Central Finland already possesses a diverse sauna culture together with numerous services and products, but they are not sufficiently visible. The objective is for people to come here from far and wide to explore sauna culture," emphasises Carita Harju, Development Manager at Jyväskylä Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd.
Development work has been assisted by the creation of the Sauna from Finland concept, beneath which it is possible to design new products and services and offer them to customers. "The aim is to use sauna to strengthen international appeal, our own particular draw. First we have to try out some very off-the-wall ideas," Harju continues.
Sauna guides to assist tourists
In Harju's view sauna has the potential to boost Central Finland's earnings from tourism, which means an increase in the number of foreign visitors and hotel occupancy rates. In addition growth in international sauna tourism could give birth to a completely new professional group. "Sauna tourist guides could introduce foreigners to the fundamentals of sauna culture. By that I mean what taking a sauna involves in practice, the dos and the don'ts and so on."
The Sauna from Finland concept has already been presented in different parts of Finland as well as internationally at the Cannes Lions 2009 festival in the summer of 2009. The photo and story competition arranged by Jykes and Keskisuomalainen, Central Finland's leading newspaper, generated over 50 stories and approximately 150 pictures linked with the Finnish sauna.
- For further information: www.saunafromfinland.fi
Photo: Architect Alvar Aalto emphasised sauna as a cultural phenomenon particular to the Finns and expressed criticism of urban sauna culture. In 1924 he designed a culture sauna intended as a national monument to be situated on Jyväskylä's Harju ridge, but it was never built.
Words by Tommi Salo, photos by Harvia, Hannu Vuorinen, Laila Venetpalo