Kuninkuusravit, The Finnhorse Trotting Championship is a trotting race event which has been organized annually since 1924, each year in a different location. In July 2012 the event was organized in Mikkeli. The purpose of this study was to find out, how important that kind of large event was for this region economically and also to profile a typical visitor of The Finnhorse Trotting Championship 2012. This study was assigned by Mikkelin Ravirata Oy.

The material of this study was collected by using questionnaires which included questions about respondents’ background information, place of residence, the frequency of visiting trotting races and esti-mates about spending money inside and outside the venue. The Questionnaires included also questions about satisfaction with the event arrangements. The material was collected during the event and by using an inquiry on the events homepage and Facebook website. There were 1 683 valid replies which was 3.36 % of the official number of the visitors (51 298).

The research results showed that the typical visitor on The Finnhorse Trotting Championship 2012 in Mikkeli was a woman from Southern Finland with the age of 41 to 50 years. She travelled without children, either alone or with one adult and by using her own car. She came to see specific horses and was a regular visitor of The Finnhorse Trotting Championships. She took part in the event on two days.

On the basis of the results it could be estimated that visitors of the The Finnhorse Trotting Championship 2012 left income for about EUR 8 million during the weekend. This amount is remarkable for this region which is known as a holiday resort. It was obvious that despite all the work and costs it was profitable to organize the event like this to attract tourists.