Responsible Tourism in Destinations Conference

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 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.

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 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 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  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 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. 

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.

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 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.

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.

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.