"Now that this happens and everyone is reporting that Helsinki is a place that can organize such a meeting even in two weeks, of course, it promotes our possibilities to be the venue for different kinds of big difficult challenging events even in future," Vapaavuori said.
He added that Helsinki was chosen partly for being known as a reliable, predictable, and functional city, and the authorities managed to organize everything on a very short notice.
"It was not hard, but of course it took time, and it was some effort of course. One challenge was that we are in the middle of our vacation season, so we needed to ask some people to come back from their vacations, including me… We have an experience with this kind of meetings, we have the know-how, and then we had a pragmatic approach from the very beginning, from the day one, so we just do it," the mayor said.
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"Unfortunately, no. I am afraid they won't have time for that," the mayor said, asked whether any cultural program for the two presidents was planned.
In contrast, Vapaavuori expressed hope that 1,500 foreign journalists who had come to Helsinki to cover the summit would spend some quality time in the city.
"I think it's a little bit old-fashioned to go to some specific sights. I think it's much nicer to just walk around in the city. Someone wants to go to the [Helsinki] archipelago, someone wants to go to a public sauna, the third one just wants to walk around. It's a nice and beautiful, clean, safe and lovely city. I hope that journalists spend as much time as possible also outside the media center," the mayor said.
Some 2,000 journalists, including pool reporters, from over 60 countries have been accredited and accommodated in the hotels without overpricing or any other problems. Around the same amount of police officers on duty were called for reinforcement. The city is taking advantage of the summit in terms of the country branding.
