ECA convention: A chilling tale from the Ice Hotel, The

Credit Management, Jun 2008 by Thomas, Colin

Colin Thomas of STA Graydon recounts his experiences of the latest meeting of the European Collectors Association, which took place 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. There are many puns we could use - but Colin has managed to use them all.

Ice-room 601 was fifty metres from reception. Enroute, the metre thick, ice-walled corridors created an eerie silence. On arrival, a modesty curtain was all that separated room 601 from the corridor. Inside the room, I took off my snow boots and edged myself awkwardly into my sleeping bag. I then zipped it right up to my chin, pulled my hat down over my ears, and lowered myself onto the reindeer skin. Beneath the reindeer skin, a thin sponge mattress and a very thin piece of wood separated me from the ice bed. Only my eyes and nose were now exposed to the constant and cruel temperature, -5 degrees Celsius.

Just as I began slipping into sleep, the silence was broken by the wife's curiously muffled voice. "Switch off the lights" she commanded. Like a kid in a 1960s school sack-race, I hopped over to the switch and obeyed her order. The manoeuvre gave me a cold shoulder. As did the commander!

Neither of us waited for the hot lingonberry juice scheduled to accompany our 7 a.m. wake-up call. Instead, at 6.30 a.m. after a fitful night, we lifted the breath-frozen curtain and trundled fifty metres to the adjoining, and mercifully heated, locker rooms. Refreshed and warm, we then watched as our fellow 'Eskimo' guests emerged from their igloos bleary-eyed, bewildered and yet strangely bewitched. We had all survived our night in the Ice hotel and we'd soon have our certificates. Yes! We were now officially certified.

Arctic - tecture

The day before, we'd flown 90 minutes from Stockholm into what was once the world's largest (land-mass) city, Kiruna. Our cases were loaded into a truck as we changed into thermals, snow suits, gloves, hats, balaclavas and crash helmets ready for our snowmobile safari to the hotel. Bitterly cold east winds blew horizontal snow into our faces as we steered over frozen rivers and lakes, and bounced through birch and pine woodland. Judging by the groans from muffled voice, you'd think I was deliberately seeking out the pot-holes!

After an hour we stopped at a wilderness camp at the very source of the Ice Hotel, the Torne River. There we tucked into a reindeer sandwich and tried to ignore the fact that moments earlier we'd stopped to take pictures of its surviving 'family' members. An hour later we arrived in the small Lapland village of Jukkasjarvi at the home of the Ice Hotel. A large area of the Torne is roped off because it forms the production site for the crystal clear water and river ice. Nearby, a huge factory receives the ice that supplies all the art, architecture and design for the Ice Hotel, as well as shipping ice all over the world for promotions, and to Absolut ice bars.

The Ice Hotel is built from seven million cubic metres of snice (a contraction of snow and ice), 2,000 tons of ice, and nearly 3,000 harvested ice blocks. The result is a 5,000 m2 span with 91 rooms that attracted 26,000 overnight guests, 150 weddings and 80,000 day visitors in the 2007/8 season. At the ice bar, drinks are served in ice glasses so it's vodka in the rocks, rather than vodka on the rocks. And, the great challenge is to have a shot of all 11 Absolut vodka flavours. Don't ask!

Snowball effect

I was representing STA Graydon, one of seventeen intrepid debt collection agencies at our European Collectors Association (ECA) annual convention. And, as every single debtor would surely agree, 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle is the best place to send a debt collector! The ECA is a best-in-class, one-member-per-country association of collection agencies providing local collection in local markets. 2008 was the turn of the Swedish partner to play host and, with great good humour, they chose the Ice Hotel as the venue.

The ECA is the perfect forum for sharing expertise, for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of legal systems, and the rates and recovery of late payment interest. Knowing the countries with the best and worst paying B2B debtors helps to shape the actions and advice we offer to clients. As a rule of thumb, northern European businesses generally pay better than those in the south. Why don't you try naming the three best, and worst, performing B2B nations? Answers can be found at the bottom of this article.

The creation of new European nations during the early 1990s increased business opportunities, and credit risks. The explosion in B2B import and export trade has had the same snowball effect on the ECA's growth in membership and influence. Today, with its emphasis on p relegal collections, ECA members break down cultural nuances and overcome language differences. Creditors can enjoy peace-of-mind, safe in the knowledge that there's an ECA member on their foreign debtor's doorstep.

Breaking the ice

Opening the convention, Anna Sarri, Managing Director of a tourist business, gave us an insight into the traditions, values and lives of the indigenous Semi people. She broke the ice with Sami 'yoiking', one of the oldest forms of singing in Europe. The oldest discovered Sami settlement is nearly ten thousand years old and a mark of the Sami progress is that, since 1993. it's had its own parliament, where Anna is one of 31 members.