Lapland hosts a workshop in sustainability for TOURBO
The second second interregional meeting took place in Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland, where the partners and stakeholders have a chance to discuss policy improvement face to face alongside experiencing some of the practices in person. This three-day event specially emphasised the sustainability aspects of twin transition in tourism industry. First day was kicked off by keynotes from Lapland tourism key stakeholders with the participation of Sustainable Travel Finland representatives, which were followed by a workshop about the improvement of policy instruments. Participants in interregional teams learned and exchanged ideas about the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of improvement in the sustainability and digitalisation measures as well as in the MSME support measures in each region. On the first day TOURBO had a chance to get acquainted also with Arctic Circle and learn about the sustainability principles of Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, a local accommodation business in the area.
On the second day of the visit TOURBO took off for a deep dive in practical sustainability examples and headed about 130 km north of Rovaniemi to Pyhä-Luosto destination for keynotes and field visits. In Luosto, local tourism companies presented their sustainability approaches. A workshop session followed with stakeholders from partner regions sharing their practices as a lead to discussion about the economic influence of sustainability activities. After workshop TOURBO headed out for a field visit in a local reindeer farm and learned about how the traditional Lappish livelihood of reindeer husbandry and tourism are connected to provide sustainable experiences for tourists. A local accommodation business hosted the final session of the day in Pyhä about examples of MSME funding from Finland and Ireland, and also shared their own story behind their business and sustainability principles. On the third day the stakeholders had a chance to discuss sustainability in practice further with local tourism companies while the partners participated in project steering group meeting.
Interregional visits are in the core of TOURBO project, as TOURBO is all about gathering and exchanging experiences between regions about supporting resilience of tourism industry by developing sustainability and digitalisation of the tourism MSMEs. Project has a goal of identifying 24 good practices that support these goals, and so far, 10 have been identified and are published on the project website, check them out, and for even more about policy development see the Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform for policy advice, solutions and peer-support community for exhanging on policy making challenges.
Also as a network, we greatly look forward to engaging with the tourism sector, to seek inspiration and fruitful inter-regional exchange.
