Biking Through Culinary and Cultural Tourism

The annual Baltic Sea Tourism Forum was organised for the 16th time in Oulu in June in 2024. The event brings together between 100 and 200 tourism actors, from the tourism industry, public authorities and policy makers from countries in the Baltic Sea area. It is a forum for introducing best practice, highlighting good initiatives and sharing project outcomes, new trends and emerging needs within the region. 

The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) is a so-called macro region of the EU, indeed it was the first of four EU macro-regions, established in 2007. The BSR consist of eight countries (Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) and makes up 17 percent of the EU population. Each macro region consists of 14 policy areas, one of which is tourism.

This year the title of the two-day tourism forum organised by the tourism policy coordinators was “Biking through Culinary & Culture!” with a focus on sustainable travel, especially cycling routes, of which there are many in the area and culinary tourism. European Cultural Capitals also took centre stage as Tartu in Estonia is one of the Cultural Capitals in 2024, and host city Oulu is itself hard at work planning for taking the title in 2026. 

I was asked to present our project Light in the Dark on day one and prepare a stand sharing some of the initial outcomes of the project. Novia is lead partner of Light in the Dark an Interreg BSR funded project 2023-26 with 11 project partners in five countries. I was joined at the event by four project partner colleagues from Cursor Oy in Finland and Kurzeme Planning Region in Latvia.

James presenting

I was happy to be able to share some of the initial findings of the two extensive surveys that have been carried out by the project. These findings were presented to the audience as teasers to recruit to the open webinar we will organise in September 2024 presenting the full surveys. The days were a perfect opportunity for discussions about potential collaboration between projects. This is a personal emphasis of mine, a result of the project fatigue that the industry portrays. Many projects approach similar problems with similar solutions, but there is seldom an overlap and sharing of results with our key stakeholders. This is something we address in Light in the Dark by mapping previous project successes throughout our area and by planning mutual webinars and exchanges with other relevant projects.

Oulu is a rising star in Finnish tourism having delivered great visitor results recently. For example, a doubling the number of Norwegian visitors, when comparing June 2024 to June 2023. During the same time, Swedish visitors were up by 45%, followed by Germans by 41%. Placed unfortunately south of the arctic circle, not quite in Lapland, it falls outside of the popular and known destinations. Oulu has none the less managed to develop accessibility with key routes opening to Europe.

Visit Oulu’s key message is, there is nothing particularly special to visit or see in Oulu, no world-famous museums or architectural sights. Instead, there are many genuine and quirky experiences to enjoy. Experiences that are as relevant to locals and visitors alike. For example, Oulu is home to the peculiar Air Guitar World Championship, which was established in 1996 to promote the message of world peace. The event is environmentally certified and attracts participants from all round the world each August with previous winners coming from as far-flung countries as New Zealand and Japan.  This was a surprise for the attendees when the only Finnish winner introduced the art of air-guitar to delegates. Whilst not to everyone’s taste it was comical to see suited gentlemen and ladies in summer dresses thrashing imaginary guitars on stage. The festival’s slogan is “make air, not war.” 

Visit Oulu’s director, Yrjötapio Kivisaari explained their strategy which has contributed greatly to their success "Tourism is about the community, we should be bold and caring in our actions

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was an ever-present discussion topic at the forum with impacts on most areas of the region. This was forced home by a tearful and moving presentation of the Ukrainian participants about the state of tourism in Ukraine, where the wonderful sea resorts and countryside provides a much-needed therapeutic rest and rehabilitation for troops and civilians alike.

Tourism can bring many benefits to the host community. For rural areas and cities like Oulu, where the dominant industry (Nokia in Oulu’s case) has left leaving a void, tourism can be a vital industry, which makes the difference to families remaining in the area. Simultaneously our news channels have been filled this summer with news of protests of overtourism

So what tourism are we working for and what kind of tourists do we want to attract? Senior Director of Visit Finland, Kristiina Hietasaari, talked about a new era of regeneration in tourism, what tourism do we want to develop. This leads to the question of what kind of tourism do the local communities and wider business communities need.

These are the central questions for the tourism industry presently with the addition of sustainability and carbon impacts. So how did I travel to Oulu myself? As sustainably as I could. By using bike, electric bus and an electric train, my 750km journey’s carbon footprint should have been very low. 

James Simpson, Project manager - Light in the Dark - Increasing resilience in rural and coastal tourism in the northern Baltic Sea Region by developing off-season experiences

The blogpost has been reviewed by Novia's editorial board and accepted for publication on 12.9.2024.