Responsible Tourism in Destinations Conference

We welcome you to Helsinki, Finland, where the 15th International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations is held in 9-10 June, 2022. Theme of the conference is Advancing Responsible Tourism. The conference is organized in different locations in the beautiful city of Helsinki. Share your experiences #rtdfinland2022

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The tourism sector meets new challenges with vast economic, ecological, social, cultural and political changes confronting us. These changes call for the swift development of solutions to mitigate or to adapt to them. They also shape customers’ expectations and quality requirements; we fail to meet those changing expectations at our peril. Globally tourism industry struggles with overcrowding and overtourism, the consequence of our very success as an industry. For example, the cruise industry comes with positive and negative impacts and is one of the hot issues in overtourism discussion. Carbon is one of the key challenges in tourism, not only for transportation, our industry is very dependent on cheap fossil fuels. Now, after the pandemic, it is even more important to build the industry back in a responsible way.

Call for papers

Subthemes

Responsible Tourism in Destinations Finland wishes to receive presentations especially on practical cases, academic research, reports on work in progress discussing the themes of

• Destination development and responsibility
• Overtourism and overcrowding
• Resilience in tourism
• Socio-cultural aspects in responsible tourism
• Sense of community in tourism destinations
• Responsible tourism and hospitality business
• Tourism employment and responsibility
• Tourism related industries and responsibility
• CleanTech, new technologies and digitalisation in responsible tourism
• Responsible marine and lake tourism
• Developing expertise on responsible tourism
• Circular economy in responsible tourism
• Stakeholder thinking in responsibility issues
• Challenges on tourism caused by climate change
• Building the industry back – ensuring responsibility during and after the pandemic
• Other relevant themes related to the conference themes

Please note that the abstracts should be submitted as an e-mail attachment (MS Word-document) to the Scientific Programme Committee icrtFinland@jamk.fi. The deadline for abstract submission is the 28th of February 2022.

This year case studies will be edited and published in Best Practises in Responsible Tourism book. Research papers will be edited and published in a Special issues in Responsible Tourism Vol II.

Registration fees and instructions

Registration to the conference opens 7th March, 2022.

Standard Fee

Full fee 150 €/1 day, 300 €/two days

Fee for ICRT Finland members

90 €/1 day, 180 €/two days

Price includes

VAT, conference programme, refreshments, lunches during 9 and 10 June and social programme, conference dinner (in two day registrations, available for other attendees for an additional cost). Please note, that accommodation is not included in the registration fee and must be booked separately. You'll find more information in the Accommodation -section below.

Registration deadline

Last day for registration is 9 May 2022.

Participants from Finland

If you come from an institute in Finland, it is possible to pay the participation fee with an invoice. In this case, please add the invoicing information and address in Additional information on the form and send it without online payment.

Venue and Info

Helsinki is one of the pilot destinations in the Sustainable Travel Finland initiative launched in September 2019 by Visit Finland. The initiative provides companies and destinations with a sustainable development process covering ecological, social, economic and cultural dimensions.

Helsinki wants to be a pioneer for local implementation of global responsibilities. In September 2018, the city, being after New York the second city in the world and the first one in Europe to do so, thus made a commitment to report voluntarily to the UN on its implementation of the sustainable development goals. The City of Helsinki's strategy for 2017-2021 includes the goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2035.

Wednesday 8 June

Get-together (more info to come)

Thursday 9th - Friday 10th of June

The conference takes place at Oodi, the new Central Library in Helsinki.

Oodi is Helsinki’s new Central Library and a living meeting place. Its wide range of services and facilities are available to residents seven days a week, from early in the morning till late in the evening. Oodi functions as a living room for residents, located right at the heart of Helsinki.

Oodi has become a popular meeting place for Helsinki residents and welcomed more than two million visitors this year. Oodi has been voted winner of the 2019 Public Library of the Year award by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). The recognition was awarded at the organisation’s annual conference currently taking place in Athens, Greece.

Accommodation

Helsinki has a wide range of hotels to choose from, from hostels offering budget accommodation to cozy boutique hotels and a number of well-furbished quality hotels.

The room rates in Finland are reasonable, and the rates include:

  • taxes
  • buffet breakfast
  • usually a wireless internet connection

Block reservations and special rates

The local organizers have made block reservations and asked for special rates for the conference participants for 8 - 12 June 2022 in the hotel featured below. Scandic is one of the leading hotel chains in sustainability issues. More information about sustainability issues: Sustainability | Scandic Hotels

For these prices, please use the hotel-specific discount code, and contact the hotel directly (booking agencies do not recognize the discount code). Please note that there is a limited number of special rate rooms available and bookings are solely made on “first booked, first reserved” basis – thus booking well in advance is recommended.

All guests are required to make their own accommodation arrangements; accommodation is not included in the conference participation fee.

Hotel Scandic Simonkenttä

Standard room

  • 139 € single room / night
  • 149 € double room / night

Room prices include breakfast buffet and Wi-Fi connection.

Please book directly through hotels webpages: https://www.scandichotels.fi

Use booking/discount code: BJYV080622

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Speakers

We're proud to introduce our excellent keynote speakers and panelists - learn more about them from below!

Harold Goodwin

Harold Goodwin is the Founding Director of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism. For the last fifteen years he has been at the forefront of efforts to make tourism more responsible, working with tour operators in the UK, as an originating market, and with communities and governments in destinations around the world. He drafted the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism in Destinations and co-chaired the 1st International Conference on Responsible Tourism in 2002, and subsequently in Kerala, Belize, Oman, Canada, Brazil, London, Barcelona, Manchester, Dublin, and Cape Town again in 2015 in Finland. He is Advisor to World Travel Market on Responsible Tourism, chairs the judges of the World Responsible Tourism Awards and the advisory panel of the International Tourism Partnership of leading international hotels.

Liisa Mäkelä

Liisa Mäkelä is a Sustainable Travel Development Manager, Business Finland/Visit Finland. Climate change is the biggest of the world's current environmental threats, and in the Arctic region, the climate is warming double the speed comparing to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the role of tourism as part of the global economy is growing. The most sensitive to climate change are many of Finland’s outdoor travel products that depend on climate. Mitigation requires proactive tourism planning and management at national and regional level, and here Visit Finland seeks to take an active role to guarantee the sustainable future and tourism growth for Finland.

Experienced and educated in sustainable tourism development, and equipped with a extensive experience in travel industry, Liisa sees how sustainability and travel industry works well together. At Visit Finland Liisa Mäkelä is working on the development of sustainable travel, with an aim to shift the travel industry in Finland towards even more sustainable future. Visit Finland has recently launched a ‘Sustainable Travel Finland’ concept, a low threshold development tool to assist Finnish travel companies and DMOs to adapt sustainable practices. The initiative is designed to nurture, conserve and preserve what is most important; Finland’s unspoilt natural environment, as well as the Finnish culture and lifestyle which is rooted in the country’s pure and pristine outdoors.

Jukka Punamäki

Mr. Punamäki works for the city of Helsinki at the Travel and Tourism Unit and is in charge of tourism development for the city. He has a long history within in the tourism industry, mainly specializing in regional tourism development. He has been working as an Executive Director for a DMO in Lapland, and as a CEO for another DMO at the southernmost point in Finland. Mr. Punamäki’s working history includes also global companies such as British Airways and EF Education First. In recent years the main focus areas has been within sustainable tourism development, digitalization and knowledge management.

Dianne Dredge

Dianne Dredge is Director of The Tourism CoLab, an Australian-based online tourism education agency that specialises in disrupting tourism education through global cohort learning experiences that challenge and inspire. She is also co-founder of Designing Tourism, a social enterprise that delivers experimental projects that shift how destinations, communities and governments plan, manage and engage in the future of tourism.

Originally trained as an environmental and urban planner, Dianne has spent the last 30 years gathering a wealth of experience in Australia, Canada, Mexico, China and Europe and has held guest professorships at Lund University, Sweden and Federation University, Australia since leaving a 20-year career as a professor of tourism planning and policy. She has provided policy analysis and advice on digitalisation and collaborative economy to international organisations such as the OECD and the European Commission. At local levels she has delivered destination management plans and organisational change journeys. She is a creative systems thinker, and her expertise includes planning, policy analysis, organisational design, place activation, design thinking, community engagement, and education.

Guðrún Þóra Gunnarsdóttir

Guðrún Þóra Gunnarsdóttir is the Director of the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre. She has more than two decades of experience in teaching and researching tourism. Guðrún led the development of the Department of Rural Tourism at Holar University that was established 1996. Her research interests have focused on tourism in rural areas, tourism impacts, and sustainable destination development. However, as the director of the research centre, Guðrún supervises tourism research projects across the field.

Anu Nylund 

Anu Nylund  has been working in Tourism Industry for more than 25 years, in Finland and in Spain and has specialized in responsible tourism and education.

As a pragmatic person Anu tends to put theory into practice and has a special interest in continuous learning. Her academic studies and Master Thesis were based on sustainable development and Responsible Tourism (University of Lapland 2014). For a few years she has been interested in Regenerative tourism and has completed three courses on the subject in Spanish. Anu is a member of Visit Finland Academy and has been coaching Tourism enterprises and destinations in  Sustainable Travel Finland program all around Finland. Anu has been an active member of ICRT Finland since 2015.  Mood of Finland company, with the mission to act for a better future, was established in 2018.

Harri Taskinen

Harri Taskinen and his company Tavolo Bianco Oy act in the Säynätsalo Town Hall as sustainable travel organizers.

Säynätsalo is situated in Central Finland in the Lake Land area. Town Hall is one of the most important works of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The building is not used anymore as an office building, but the international and domestic interest keeps it active and offers some possibilities for tourism services. 

Joan-Carles Cambrils Camarena

Joan-Carles Cambrils Camarena is Deputy Director at the Fundació Visit València. Currently he coordinates projects such as the European Capital of Smart Destination 2022 program. He is PhD in Economics and Social Sciences, Master in "Public Management" and Bachelor in Economic and Business Sciences.

He has worked as Advisor Head of the Support Unit for the General Directorate of the Institute of Tourism of Spain and has been responsible for tourism policy in a pool of five municipalities. Also has been member of the Board of Directors of the public-private company Gandía Protur S.L. In addition, over past 25 years he has participated as a lecturer or technical advisor in Tourism Management internationally. He has been representative of Spain, by delegation of the General Director of Tourism, in the Board of Directors and in the General Assembly of the European Travel Commission.

Milla Öystilä

Milla Öystilä is a specialist in sustainable tourism, visitor management and tourism planning especially in World Heritage Sites and has over 15 years of experience of these fields. She is currently working in the sea fortress of Suomenlinna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site as a tourism specialist.

Milla Öystilä is also a Vice Chair of the Association of World Heritage Sites in Finland. The association has the responsibility to develop and share knowledge and also to raise awareness of the World Heritage and World Heritage sites in Finland.

Rositsa Röntynen

Rositsa Röntynen (MSc) is a Project Manager in the School of Business at Jamk University of Applied Sciences. She has worked in research, development, and innovation, leading various projects in the fields of tourism and higher education. She has also held different expert positions in regard to nature and rural tourism, responsible tourism and digital education.

Scientific Programme Commitee

The RTD conference gives the participants a possibility to develop their global perspective through sharing experiences of international tourism operators, trade, specialists and academics on different topics linked to the main theme. The conference also provides a great opportunity for networking and enjoying the Nordic white nights in Finland.

Minna Tunkkari-Eskelinen, (PhD)

Minna Tunkkari-Eskelinen, PhD. (econ) Chair of the Scientific Committee works as principal lecturer at JAMK University of Applied Sciences. She has also worked at University of Jyväskylä in degree program on Entrepreneurship and Secretary Institute of Education Evaluation. She has also been co-founder of the consultancy firm Confidentum Ltd. Her doctoral dissertation was published in 2005 focusing on family business next generation members’ perspective. She has been writing on entrepreneurship and family business research topics in several conference-proceedings. Lately she has conducted research on sustainable tourism from entrepreneurs’ perspective and sustainability as a customer insight of Finnish tourists. She is also actively involved in innovative service design practices in co-creation with the students and entrepreneurs. Currently, she is a vice member in Board of Entrepreneurship Education Research Association in Finland.

Anne Törn-Laapio (PhD)

Dr Anne Törn-Laapio (PhD) is a Lecturer at the JAMK University of Applied Sciences in Jyväskylä. She has worked widely in the field of responsible tourism, in research, teaching and development activities. Her research has mainly been focused on responsibility in the tourism and hospitality sector. Her current research interest is sustainability in tourism marketing. She has also done research on for example networking and welfare of rural enterprises at the University of Helsinki. Törn completed her PhD Thesis on social and environmental sustainability in tourism at the University of Oulu. She is also working as a reviewer for journals such as Journal of Environmental Management, Journal of Tourism Management and Boreal Environmental Research.

Guðrún Þóra Gunnarsdóttir

Guðrún Þóra Gunnarsdóttir is the Director of the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre. She has more than two decades of experience in teaching and researching tourism. Guðrún led the development of the Department of Rural Tourism at Holar University that was established 1996. Her research interests have focused on tourism in rural areas, tourism impacts, and sustainable destination development. However, as the director of the research centre, Guðrún supervises tourism research projects across the field.

Åsa Grahn (PhD)

Dr Åsa Grahn (PhD) is a Lecturer at the Norwegian School of Hotel management in Stavanger, Norway. She has worked widely in the field of hospitality and tourism as well as teaching and research. Her research interest is mainly within the field of responsible tourism and ethics with clear links to outdoor experiences. Her current research interest is in sustainable and ethical tourism consumption, for example looking at the link between outdoor recreation developments for local populations as well as for tourism. Grahn completed her PhD Thesis on personal benefits derived from cultural tour experiences at Otago University, NZ. She is also working as a reviewer for journals.

Mário Passos Ascenção (PhD)

Dr. Mário Passos Ascenção is a Principal Lecturer in Experience Design, Imagineering and Serious Play in Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and the Play Chief Evangelist and Tool Factory Chief Alchemist in the university’s Service Experience Laboratory LAB8. Mário is a Certified Experience Expert by the Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry (now House of Lapland), an Accredited Service Design Master Trainer by the Service Design Network (SDN), and a Certified Facilitator of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method by the Association of Master Trainers. He is also a Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE®) and a Certified Guest Service Professional (CGSP®) by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute. His current teaching, training, research and publications focus on the experience economy, service design, experience design, Imagineering and serious play.

More information

Petra Blinnikka

Lehtori, Senior Lecturer
Matkailu ja palvelut, Tourism and Service Business
Liiketoiminta, School of Business
+358405399185

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