Best Practice City of Helsinki – Accessibility in Urban Tourism

The City of Helsinki was founded in 1550 and became the capital of Finland in 1812. Today, it is the country’s most popular tourist destination. In 2023, the city registered more than 4 million overnight stays with approximately 57% of visitors being domestic and 43% coming from abroad.

Context

Helsinki invests in EDI actions, ensuring that tourism experiences are equally accessible to everyone. The city aims to be an international pioneer in sustainability within the tourism and event sectors, with the goal of becoming the world’s most sustainable travel destination. This approach prioritises economic, environmental, and social sustainability, with a strong emphasis on EDI practices. These initiatives are integrated into Helsinki’s strategic tourism planning and are central to the city’s tourism and events action programme, which considers diversity in age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, culture, physical characteristics, special needs, and socio economic status. The proposed actions to enhance EDI in tourism focus on three key areas: diversifying marketing strategies, developing personnel diversity, and encouraging tourism and encouraging the commitment of tourism and service providers to these values. The City of Helsinki’s Tourism and Destination Services unit employs 14 professionals.

Implementation

The EDI action programme prepares stakeholders through various training initiatives, beginning with personnel development. To increase knowledge of the target groups, the course introduces essential concepts and terminology, covering themes such as understanding and engaging with diverse visitors, improving customer interactions, and addressing issues like working with individuals with disabilities, ensuring safe travel experiences, and addressing underlying prejudices. Additional personnel development training includes identifying business potential and advancing inclusive, diverse business practices. To further integrate EDI into Helsinki’s strategic tourism and event planning, the programme includes additional relevant actions and their practical implementation. These actions focus on ensuring the recruitment of a diverse workforce, aligning with the city’s current EDI educational offerings, and engaging experts from target group associations, DEIB (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Belonging) specialists, and the tourism industry. Additionally, Helsinki has developed accessible resources to help tourists navigate the city, including a service map with service-specific accessibility details. The MyHelsinki website also promotes inclusivity, with the image bank showcasing diversity pictures and material to reinforce the organisation’s commitment to EDI.

 

Enabling Factors

Helsinki’s primary enabling factor as a sustainable tourist destination stems from its commitment to social and environmental values. This is reflected in its inclusive culture, unique events, diverse food offerings, and closeness to nature and the sea. Additionally, the city prioritises investment in EDI to ensure that tourism experiences are inclusive for visitors from all backgrounds.

Quotes

‘Tourism that doesn’t discriminate against anyone and applies to everyone is an important part of promoting diversity and inclusion as well as an integral part of an equal society. At the same time, it promotes the goals of sustainable development.’

Lessons Learned

The city acknowledges that EDI principles being essential to building an equitable society. Commitment to these practices requires training that promotes diversity both internally and externally.

Future Plans

Future training sessions will be developed by incorporating various operating models and best practice examples. These supplementary materials will be produced in languages other than Finnish or Swedish to enhance accessibility and understanding. In addition, it is deemed important to promote EDI in all stakeholder meetings and to highlight the guidelines of inclusive tourism for companies.

Links with UN Sustainable Development Goals

Click here for the full EDI report