Smart Gets You Further - Tourism & Quality of Life

Welcome back to the Use Smart Tourism Podcast. I'm Misa from the European Commission, and in today's episode we're looking at tourism from two very different, well-redated perspectives - happiness and quality of life. Smart gets you further. First, we travel north to Finland, with the National Tourism Board turn the reputation as the world's happiest country, into a bold and regional campaign. By inviting visitors to share in the Finnish way of life, they position tourism not just as sightseeing, but as a lifestyle experience rooted in trust, nature and well-being. Then, we head south to Ljubljana, Slovenia, where the focus is on listening to residents. And here, tourism isn't treated as an external force, but as part of everyday life. Through surveys, community dialogue and careful observation, the city ensures that tourism contributes positively to the local lifestyle instead of disrupting it. We begin in Finland. My name is Heli Hemenis, and I am a marketing director of Visit Finland. And my role is to promote travel to Finland. For Finland, the starting point was when many destinations were recognized. Everyone knows us, but we're not the destination of choice. Finland is not well-known globally. The awareness of Finland is a travel destination could be better. But those who know us actually think positively about us, so that is a good thing. But what we are lacking is the awareness. And that's one of the reasons that when we are promoting Finland, we are trying to find new ways and angles to talk about Finland. So, even with a strong reputation, and Finland's presence on the global travel map has still got room to grow. That challenge has led to experimenting with fresh angles, one of which has turned out to be both bold and very successful. As we all know that the competition and noise of travel destinations is quite big in marketplaces. And many people know that Nordic people are quite relaxed and they know about the happiness also, but most people don't know that it is actually Finland of all the Nordic nations who are officially, the Finns who are officially the happiest according to United Nations World Happiness Report. And that is something that we thought that we could try to own more. The breakthrough was to reframe tourism beyond just travel as a chance to find happiness by finding a piece of Finland inside yourself. This was carefully designed program to make the experience real. It's a finished way of showing things. We don't feel that we can teach things, but we can show and let people experience. And we built the camp in around four themes. It was a nature and lifestyle, health and balance, design and everyday and food and well-being. And these themes, we created very well the content. We were looking for the guides in a way coaches to these themes. And we built a program that really let people to do things by themselves. And if we take one everyday example, that'd be the sooner. A practice that shows how well-being in Finland is lived rather than taught. Sound plays a big role as a source of well-being for us. And throughout the history, the sound has been a trusted place and a place of comfort and safety. Actually, historically, significant life events such as childbirth or important decisions have taken place in sound. But today, I think the most important thing is that it's the sound I shared experience for people. It gives you social connections and sense of community. In the sound, everyone is equal. So it doesn't mean if you are a big executive somewhere or not, so everybody is equal and sound. So sound is one of the things that the travelers can experience. It's not just the past time, it is really our national treasure. Sound as found virtually everywhere in Finland. We have about 5.5 million inhabitants in Finland and over 3 million sound as. So there is a sound for everybody. And visitors can enjoy sound on diverse selection of public sound as we have. But also in hotels and public pools and gyms and office buildings and even in restaurants. And of course, maternity of residential apartments like the place where I live. For example, we have our own sound here. So we feel that when sharing a sound, it promotes openness and equality and connection with others. And that is a place where people of all ages can meet and chat. And that is really an important part of our happiness and well-being. The focus on well-being fed straight into the campaign which invited people across the world to step forward and show their own in a thing. We launched on the social media and of course as the traditional media got interested about the campaign too. So that more people saw it and went online to see what is it about. So what we asked is that people would tell in a short video of their inner fin and how they would find their inner fin and presenting themselves and people did a really, really great work with that once. There was a lot of applicants who did put a lot of effort. Before long, the campaign was making waves internationally, even turning up in places no one expected. Yes, and in my surprise, we were also in the US morning TV. And also I have to say that one of the good things was that Courtney Kardashian was posting about this campaign without us knowing about it. So she has quite a large follower base, so the message went through there also. Perhaps the most powerful outcome wasn't the coverage by a say. It was the way participants said the master class made them feel, the way it touched them. After the campaign, we were of course asking the participants how they feel and was it important. So over 98% of those who took part in the class, they said that these things have what they have learned can improve their quality of life. And I think it's really important. And we also have, at the moment also online, on our website, we have online course for the master class of happiness. So people who have done it, so they have answered 97%. They intend to implement the things they have learned in the course to their everyday life. So that is quite interesting and lovely. So for anyone curious to try themselves, the online master class of happiness is still available and open invitation to explore the finish way of well-being. And with that, let's turn to our second story where we look at how Lyubiana approaches well-being from a very different angle. My name is Dan Rissich. I work at Lyubiana Tourism as a project manager. Lyubiana starts from a clear principle. Tourism should first and foremost support the well-being of its residents. For us at Lyubiana, community well-being and community-driven tourism is a very core of how we define success and, in fact, it's the first goal in the tourism strategy of development of Lyubiana Tourism and Lyubiana Region. It also stretches through all the strategic documents, so the well-being of both locals and residents is always at the first spot. So we see tourism as a tool as a force to enhance the better quality of living through, let's say, better public spaces, so more vibrant cultural life for economic opportunities, for locals, local creators, so also small businesses. So we try to produce and empower the tourism that empowers locals, making sure they are the part of the process of the tourism development. How we measure it, we measure it through various surveys, through a regular public surveys, to see what their opinion on tourism is. Are we doing a good job or not? In this perspective, tourism is treated less as an industry, and more as a common resource, something that should create a value for the whole community. We see tourism as a source of shared value for everyone involved. So it brings added value to our stakeholders, so partners that directly benefit from tourism, but also locals or local residents that have indirect and direct benefits from it. So we conduct yearly campaigns, especially tourism makes the blana campaign, which showcases how tourism revenue contributes to community development, and we highlight tangible benefits for both residents and local businesses. So we are really transparent how we spend and how we invest the money from tourism sector into local economy. It is a perspective that's been shaped by years of listening to both residents and visitors and adjusting along the way. In the blana tourism, we've been monitoring the residents' satisfaction with the tourism and the quality of life in the blana for more than 30 years. Just a few days ago, I saw a survey from 1998. It was really interesting because there was a survey of which parts of the city you find not welcoming. And on the first spot was the city center, which is the most welcoming and most open and most visited place in the city nowadays. So 30 years later, thanks to the city renovation and closing down to the city for only pedestrians, so taking the cars out of the city center. So we are doing those surveys on yearly basis, two times per year we are asking our residents how they feel about tourism, but also generally about the quality of life in the blana, are they satisfied with events, what bothers them and so on. But we are measuring also what visitors are seeing about the city and the quality of their stay in the city center. We track their motivations, their spending habits and how positively they experience the city from safety, to infrastructure, to culture, authenticity, openness. And I must say, I'm really proud of the latest data, which shows especially high satisfaction levels with 99% of visitors describing the blana as a safe destination, 98% recognizing it as an environmentally and socially responsible destination. They particularly value their friendliness of the residents to tourists with around 98% of them stating that. We are also monitoring the data of their sentiment through travel sets, reputation tracker, which captures how the city supports trade across online platforms such as social media blogs, forums, street advisor bookings and so on. And the blana is consistently maintaining an above average positive trend and that allows us to respond quickly to any variations. If we see reputational issues arise, we can address it with our partners or policy making partners in the municipality. So it's a huge responsibility as well. Of course, some challenges are universal, Yibyana faces the same issues that many popular destinations know all too well. What's interesting to me is when we asked our residents on how they feel about tourism, their first thought is really high, it's from 76% positive first thought. But when we asked them what bothers them, one of the topics was crowds, so that crowds in the city center. And when asking tourists what bothers them, it's always the same answer all around the globe, it's other tourists. So what we are doing is we are trying to disperse the tourism flows both spatially and seasonally. So we are trying to move tourism from the city center to other cultural districts. But also implementing festivals such as Love Fist in the early spring or November could be in the late summer or autumn. Therefore the crowding is a familiar challenge. This next example shows how Yibyana's approach really shines in the very specific choices that have been made together with the residents. And great example of that is in cultural quarter Shishka. When we started developing the cultural quarter that's just outside of the city center, we asked our locals from Shishka, "Is there any place in their quarter that they would not like to be highlighted as a tourist attraction?" And they said they have Koshishki Bayer, so it's a pond in Shishka that they feel that it's best to keep a secret just for them. So just a spot for locals. So we don't use Koshishki Bayer, so Koshishki is a pond in our promotional activities on our social media. We don't promote visitors of Yibyana to go to that space. That's how we are working together with locals on that topic. It isn't just about neighborhood spaces. Surveys point to other areas where small changes can make a real difference for residents. For example, in our yearly survey with residents, they expressed that they are bothered when they go into restaurant or coffee shop in Yibyana, and they are greeted in English language, not Sloven language. So we are really proud of our language. There's only 2 million people living in Slovenia. And we explained that to our restaurants, so they are in coffee shops and bars. How important is it for residents to go to their favorite bar and be greeted in Slovenia language and see the menus in Slovenia and in English language, not just in English language. We are lowering the number of people on guided tours to 25 people. So as our residents said, they are bothered by bigger crowds and we are implementing zero waste management strategies in Yibyana's hotel to reduce the waste produced by the visitors of the city. So it's working hand in hand with partners and residents of the city to improve the quality of life. All of this ties back to identity. A vital element for a small capital like Yibyana where tourism shapes how the city feels to both residents and visitors. Yibyana is a town of 300,000 residents. Last year we had 2.6 million overnight generated by the visitors of the city, around 97 to 96% of them are foreigners. So one of the most important things of tourism is bringing this cosmopolitan world vibe to the city. To highlight this shared identity, the city launched Yibyana Tourism Week, a project that turns the tables by inviting residents to experience that city the way visitors do. It's a project that we are doing now for the fourth year. We invite our partners, last year there were more than 40 partners with 150 activities just for the residents of the city. So we are trying to put the residents into perspective of the visitors. So often all of us are guilty of that, are being visitors of our own city. Just when some family members or friends come to visit our city and then we are taking them to the most visited tourist attractions. And the Yibyana Tourism Week, which was celebrated at the last week of September, around the World Tourism Day, we are inviting the residents to feel like visitors in their own city. To go and visit the boat rides, visit the Yibyana Castle, go into museums there, possibly they are not visiting any more, or to go on the guided tours and learn more things about their city quarter or the city center. Yibyana's approach is part of a larger movement, one that sees the well-being of residents as central to the future of tourism. More and more of our focus and activities is being centered around residents and their quality of life in the destination. So that's some shift that's been visible in the last 15 to 20 years globally. And I think those destination management organizations that are shifting and thinking first and foremost about their residents' quality of life are the ones that are going to be successful in the next year. In the end, it comes down to a simple truth that all smart destinations across Europe know very well the better the quality of life for locals, the better the experience for travelers. Visitors want to visit the urban destinations where the quality of life is really good, where they feel welcomed and where there's good content for them to visit. And so for destination management organizations in the future and now currently they have to focus on the good quality of life on the content they are providing to their locals and visitors are going to be satisfied with that as well. That's all for today's episode, a big thank you to our guests and of course to you for listening. We'll see you next time on the Use Smart Tourism Podcast. Smart gets you further.