Visit Finland, Finland’s national travel promotion organization has started issuing Sustainable Travel Finland (STF) labels to Finnish travel service provides.

It comes after lifting the international travel restrictions. Visit Finland has accredited 30 or so travel agencies because they met the sustainable travel criteria.

The new accreditation covers economic, ecological, social, and cultural sustainability standards set by Visit Finland. Responsible and sustainable business models have become a necessity now more than ever.

Visit Finland created this program to promote responsible tourism in Finland and allow international travel trade to find sustainable tourism companies.

The Sustainable Travel Finland or STF program encourages collaboration between the government, regional tourism bodies, and companies.

STF enables all parties to work together and ensure a responsible and sustainable future for tourism in Finland.

The program gave out the labels to the companies that have been involved with STF since the pilot phase. These companies have been with the initiative that started in spring 2019.

Travel Finland has opened up the STF program to everyone whether or not they already have a sustainability policy in place, and the best thing is there is no admission fee.

The program is designed to provide the companies participating with a roadmap and a comprehensive toolkit, including tailormade training courses, online manuals, and a digital working environment.

Completing the program will give them the STF label. Visit Finland has designed the program tp designed to nurture, conserve, and preserve what is most important; Finland’s unspoiled natural environment.

This initiative is geared to preserve the Finnish culture and lifestyle that is rooted in the country’s scenic and undisturbed outdoors.

The entire program has been released nationwide, and it comes as a relief as many states view sustainable travel as the long term solution to tourism in the country.

The program provides travel agencies with tangible, sustainable tourism tools to help them to build a sustainable model of tourism to integrate with their business.

Holiday Village Himmerki in Posio and Hawkhill in Vihti was one of the first companies to get the STF badge. Reijo Lantto from Holiday Village Himmerki said that the business they run already had an operation based on the principles of sustainable tourism.

According to Reijo, the entire initiative was a coordinated effort by Posio Tourism Association. They helped Holiday Village Himmerki with several new ideas that allowed the company to adopt a more sustainable model for the business with a more systematic approach.

This partnership helped the tourism company to solve a host of different practical problems that have motivated the company to instill a sustainable tourism model.

Kaisa Ala-Outinen from Hawkhill said that, with the certificate, they hope to set an example and inspire other hospitality entrepreneurs to get involved in sustainable tourism.

The objective of this sustainable tourism initiative is to combat climate change and promoting regional economies.

The program works in association with a host of different companies that offer various accommodation, restaurants, attractions, guided services, tours and activities, travel agencies, transportation companies, and harbor.

The program is opening up to every hospitality entrepreneurs and travel agencies to help enrich the tourism sector, and it looks to be a winner.

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