The MyHelsinki.fi website has won the prestigious City Nation Place Award in the category for Best Citizen Engagement. The award was presented at the annual City Nation Place Global Conference in London on 9 November.
MyHelsinki.fi is a new service that was launched in June 2017 to bring together content about the city’s tourism offerings and business opportunities in a single website. In keeping with the website’s service promise – Your local guide to Helsinki – the content features recommendations by locals. The website reflects the recent changes to Helsinki’s city marketing strategy, the aim of which is to further enhance Helsinki’s international visibility and appeal.
MyHelsinki.fi won the City Nation Place Award in the category for Best Citizen Engagement, which recognises how successfully locals have been proactively engaged in growing the reputation of a city or nation. Helsinki competed for victory in this category with Cape Town, Chile, Costa Rica and Butler County. “Helsinki has been shown to be one of the best examples in the world for how locals can be engaged to communicate positively about their hometown. The MyHelsinki.fi website was developed together with locals, and it has proven how visitors and international experts working here are interested in the same things as locals,” says Tia Hallanoro, Marketing Communications Director at Helsinki Marketing.
The City Nation Place jury described the MyHelsinki.fi website as an innovative service that offers locals a unique way to share their feelings about Helsinki, as well as their favourites places and activities. The jury also highlighted that MyHelsinki.fi is genuinely new and different, and that it reflects a comprehensive approach to destination marketing. City Nation Place (CNP) is a UK-based forum for strategic place branding and marketing.
CNP provides information that can be used by cities to grow their reputation, attract investments and expertise, and enhance their economic competitiveness. This City Nation Place Global Conference is one of the leading events in the industry, and this year’s conference in London and attracted over 170 delegates from 37 countries.
MyHelsinki.fi service attracts international interest
Personal recommendations are overwhelmingly effective marketing tools in the social media environment. Accordingly, MyHelsinki.fi has a function that allows locals to list their own favourites and share these on social media or by e-mail. Helsinki’s new initiative in the digital environment has already attracted a lot of international interest in just a few months. “The visual appeal and contents of the website are considered genuinely interesting among visitors.
They are most impressed, however, by the fact that the website’s recommendations are actually made by locals. MyHelsinki also succeeds in presenting elements that are familiar from traditional city marketing, such as attractions and restaurants, in a whole new way,” Tia Hallanoro continues. Helsinki has also been recognised as a technical leader in innovative digital solutions. Myhelsinki.fi utilises an event and location database maintained by Helsinki Marketing with the aim of making it even easier to find services and attractions.
Open data is being used to highlight local events, shops and restaurants, for example. It will also be possible to offer users individually tailored recommendations based on their user data.
