2023

Sorakunnas, Esko; Räikkönen, Juulia; Konu, Henna; Grénman, Miia; Tyrväinen, Liisa

By 2025, Finland aims to become the world’s leading sustainable travel destination where the tourism industry operates responsibly and sustainably (Visit Finland Strategy 2021-2025). To achieve this ambitious goal, a national sustainability program, Sustainable Travel Finland (STF), was launched in 2019. It covers all dimensions of sustainability (ecological, social, cultural and economic). Our research focuses on ecological sustainability, particularly biodiversity, which refers to life in all its manifestations (Kotiaho and Sääksjärvi, 2021). The decline of biodiversity – the impoverishment of life on this planet – has become a major concern comparable to climate change. Much of Finnish tourism is nature-based and dependent on biodiversity and functioning ecosystems, and therefore, the tourism-biodiversity relationship is particularly relevant in our context.