Theme

Rent a kayak and pick litter out of Copenhagen’s harbour. That was the simple idea Tobias Weber-Andersen had while out running one day in 2017. Nine years later, GreenKayak is a tourism magnet with kayaks in four Nordic countries, plus Germany and Japan.

Tourism is coming in for increased criticism, especially in Spain, but also in other popular destinations like Amsterdam, Berlin and Venice. Unease about the number of tourists also exists in some places in the Nordics, and many are working on strategies for more sustainable tourism.

When the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands announced in 2019 that he would close the country for an entire weekend to allow for the restoration of environmental damage, more than 3,000 volunteers from around the world said they wanted to help. Since then, the Faroes have repeated the success every year. 15,000 applied for…

Tampere – Finland’s Manchester – was a thriving industrial city. Now it is fighting unemployment and is investing in tourism and startups. But the industrial heritage lives on, as seen at the Finnish Labour Museum Werstas. Yet most popular of all is perhaps the Moomin Museum.

Iceland is seen as an environmentally friendly country in many ways, but sustainability is still a relatively new concept – even within the tourism industry. Interest is now growing, especially as customers increasingly demand responsible choices.

Sustainable tourism is about preservation. Regenerative tourism is about improvement and contributing to recovery. Kullaberg Nature Reserve involves the surrounding community to maximise the positive effects of tourism.

With more than 2.3 million annual visitors, how does Bergen’s Mount Fløyen balance growth and sustainability?

Tourism in the Nordic region has grown a lot over the past decades. It creates jobs and money in the state coffers. But mass tourism comes at a price. And local communities and researchers are sounding the alarm: Sustainable tourism must be about more than the climate and money.