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Text by Linus Theorell
Linda Forss
Text by Linus Theorell
On Thursday, 6 March 2014, Linda Forss, a teacher and environmental engineer from the Department of Ecotechnology and Sustainable Building Engineering at Mid Sweden University, started to present about “The environmentalists guide to the world of “destinations” followed by presentations about on-site observations regarding tourism from an environmental perspective by Eco-technique students.
Tourism is all about having a reason for travelling to a certain destination. The destination can be everything from a specific place or a large geographic area but the thing all destinations have in common is a particular reason making them worth visiting. According to VisitSweden tourism is characterized as “providing growth, export values and employment staying in Sweden.” But at the same time as tourism is an important economic sector that has a turnover of over 275 billion SEK per year it also has a large climate impact standing for 10 % of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions.
The eco-technique students presented three different areas regarding tourism mostly based on interviews with local companies working within the areas. The first sector, Transport and Communication, focused on the bus traffic and the main conclusion was that the bus prices must be cheaper if people shall choose the bus instead of the car. The group working with the second sector, Accommodation and Food, was surprised over the extensive environmental work performed by a hotel in Östersund. The final group, focusing on Activities, Shopping and Events presented that the major reasons for Norwegian tourist to visit Östersund is shopping, visiting Frösö zoo and maintaining the car at Swedish auto repair shops.
Linda Forss presenting a research that claims that the Swedish nature is not why foreign tourist visit Sweden.