The Nordic Vision 2030 aims for the Nordic Region to become the most sustainable and integrated region in the world. To realise this vision, the focus is on creating:
a green region, promoting a green transition of our societies,
a competitive region, promoting green growth based on knowledge, innovation, mobility and digital integration,
and a socially sustainable region, promoting an inclusive, equal and cohesive region with strengthened cultural exchange and welfare.
Tourism plays a critical role in achieving this vision. While it presents significant opportunities for regional development, it's imperative to consider its impact. The Nordic focus on digitalization, innovation, and attracting long-haul markets aims to strengthen the industry's competitiveness and raise the region's profile, all while prioritizing sustainable tourism practices (Nordiska Ministerrådet, 2020).
Within this context, the research project "Socially Sustainable Rural Tourism" seeks to look further into the concept of sustainable tourism development from a sociocultural perspective in the Nordic context. The focus will mainly be on regional and local tourism (not urban tourism) since tourism is also being utilised and promoted as an important regional development tool. While tourism is seen as having great economic possibilities for the more rural regions it will also have environmental impacts as well as social. The project will examine what the Nordic countries consider and define as the social and cultural impacts of tourism development to be, and what indicators are used to measure and evaluate the social dimension of sustainability in the Nordic countries’ ongoing quest for sustainable tourism development.
The project is part of an assignment Nordregio has been commissioned to do by the Nordic Thematic Group for Green, Innovative and Resilient Regions, which is a part of the Nordic Co-operation Programme for Regional Development and Planning. For further information about the Nordic Thematic Group for Green, Innovative and Resilient Regions, please see:
https://nordregioprojects.org/innovation/This report is the first publication of the project “Socially Sustainable Rural Tourism”. The content of the report is based on a literature review of academic publications, inputs from existing international indicator frameworks for measuring the sustainability of tourism and the most recent and relevant national policy documents of the eight Nordic countries.
The focus of this study is understanding the context and background of socially sustainable tourism in the Nordic region. The report therefore serves as a prerequisite and foundation for upcoming case studies in all eight of the Nordic countries. Hence, it functions as the basis for further studies and informs our upcoming work, where we set out to explore how (and if) Nordic tourism destinations implement and manage the social dimension of sustainable tourism.