The thesis commissioner is the city of Valkeakoski. The research question is “How to develop tourism services in Valkeakoski to attract more Rus-sian customers?”

The objectives are the following: − To learn tourism services of Valkeakoski. − To study Russian tourists as customers. − To collect feedback from Russians about Valkeakoski and Finland. − To find potential ways of developing tourism services in Valkeakoski for Russian customers.

As theory, material from books of Kotler, Raju, Durovich and other au-thors were used. Main concepts about the tourism product were taken in order to understand how to create, develop and promote them to customer.

A survey and interviews were conducted among current and potential Rus-sian customers of tourism services of Valkeakoski. The results showed that Valkeakoski has good opportunities to attract more Russian customers and offer them more services. But there are some challenges connected with cross-cultural communication between Finns and Russians.

A development plan was written, in which recommendations to tourism services providers of Valkeakoski were given. The recommendations in-clude advice to promote services to Russians through the Internet and use the Russian language where possible. It is also reasonable to take into ac-count the aspects of Russian culture and the impressions of Russians about Finland.