The Consideration of Climate Change at the Tourism Destination Level in Finland: Coordinated Collaboration or Talk about Weather?

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a case study focusing on the role of climate change at the tourism destination level development and planning in a Finnish context. While the emergence of climate change in tourism is becoming more evident in strategies and development papers, the considerations and concrete actions of tourism stakeholders seem to be on a less established level. Interviews among tourism stakeholders in two Finnish winter tourism destinations suggest that destination-level activity related to climate change is still in its infancy, reactive by nature and dependent on individuals' ambitions. Nevertheless, the general development targets for all-year and sustainable tourism support the efforts to cope with changing climate.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research funded by the Academy of Finland under the auspices of the FiDiPro programme Human-Environment Relations in the North: Resource Development, Climate Change and Resilience at the Thule Institute, University of Oulu. The study has been realised in close collaboration with KeMMI and Vaccia projects. I would like to thank C. Michael Hall and Jarkko Saarinen for their valuable comments and support and to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and Eva Kaján for their suggestions.