Designing transformative nature-based wellbeing tourism experiences: a case study from the Finnish Lakeland Region

2

Johansen, Kelsey M; Konu, Henna

Tourism recreation research

0250-8281

2320-0308

0250-8281

68542

1

Yes

2025

2025

[Epub ahead of print 15 Jan 2025]

1-17

10.1080/02508281.2024.2443983

English

No

No

512 Business and management, 520 Other social sciences

Customer insights are essential to the tourism co-design process. However, diverse processes can be employed to gather them. Responding to the scarcity of research on facilitators’ roles in the co-design of transformative experiences, this paper examines the role of collaborative partnerships in soliciting customer insights and successfully employing them to co-design nature-based wellbeing tourism experiences for Japanese tourists through a case study of SaimaaLife, a sustainable wellness business in southeastern Finland, and its’ business partners. Through thematic analysis of triangulated data from interviews, focus groups, and client-facing business documents, this study illuminates their intentional and collaborative co-design process, including how it integrates transformational triggers alongside culturally embedded practices like forest bathing, guided nature relaxation, and authentic Finnish lifestyle elements to deliver on the desired wellbeing outcomes of tour participants. At the same time, this case study revealed how intentional approaches to the co-design and facilitation process support mSMEs to maximize resources, reduce innovation burdens, access new markets, and build meaningful collaborative relationships with customers and business partners. These findings contribute to academic understandings of collaborative co-design, including tourism entrepreneurs and experience facilitators roles in and approaches to designing nature-based wellbeing tourism experiences for transformation.

WOS:001396933000001

2-s2.0-85214895508