Development of safety communication and positive safety culture in Lapland tourism

Tourism in Lapland is growing at an unprecedented rate, and the growth is still focused on the winter season. When the resources of the authorities (such as rescue services, police, health services) are sized according to the number of the local population, the situation has escalated, and the authorities’ ability to meet the needs of both tourists and the local population is in an unsustainable situation. Since the growth of authorities’ resources is not visible, efforts must be made to proactively influence the fact that as few accidents as possible happen to tourists.

The development of communication is key here. The members of the safety network have each produced a considerable amount of proactive safety instructions and materials, but they do not reach the target groups effectively or have been forgotten. In addition, the confrontation and negative conversation culture in the tourism industry has grown with new actors and new phenomena, such as short-term rentals, wild taxis, intrusions into yard areas, pickpocketing, traffic jams.

The goal is to create an open and shared communication forum for tourism operators in Lapland, which enhances the effectiveness of safety communication in tourism, supports risk-based and proactive safety work, and enables smooth information flow between authorities and tourism industry stakeholders.

The sub-goals are:

1. To enhance safety communication in tourism by developing unified communication practices and content between authorities and tourism industry actors.

2. To create a demo of a digital communication platform that serves as a central hub for tourism safety information and enables two-way information exchange.

3. To strengthen cooperation between tourism operators and authorities so that safety risks in tourism can be addressed proactively and in a timely manner.

4. To ensure the impact and continuity of the project by engaging key stakeholders in the development and maintenance of the communication forum and the digital platform demo after the project ends.

• Assessed the current state and development needs of safety communication in the Lapland tourism industry
•  Collected and updated existing safety materials and best practices
• Organized a webinar series on selected safety materials
• Established a communication forum for tourism safety
• Developed a prototype/demo version of a digital safety communication platform enabling two-way communication between the tourism sector and authorities
• Agreed on the development and maintenance of the platform prototype/demo version

Strengthening the positive tourism safety culture and expertise by involving not only tourism professionals and safety network organizations, but also tourists and locals, as well as new actors, such as short-term renters. The project activities will be implemented throughout the Lapland region.