Aktiviteter
Parallel sessions
In addition to keynotes and presentations, the conference will also give insight into specific, hands-on examples from tourism providers in the Nordics through parallel afternoon sessions.
- Jaclyn Robidoux, Maine Oyster Trail, USA
- Rasmus Johnsen, Cold Hawaii, Denmark
- Benjamin Donner, Archipelago National Park, Finland
- Karolina Martinson, Algblomman AB, Sweden
- Lofoten Beach Camp, Norway
- Emma Arenshøj, Havdypp, Faroe Islands
- Kyrre Evjenth Slind, Vegaøyan Verdensarv, Norway
- Samson Højgaard, boat.fo, Faroe Islands
- Anna Karlsdóttir, University of Iceland, Iceland
More information on themes and cases will be provided here on an ongoing basis.
Jaclyn Robidoux
Jaclyn Robidoux is a nationally recognized leader in sustainable aquaculture, fisheries, and community-driven ocean tourism. As a marine extension specialist with Maine Sea Grant, she works directly with fishermen, farmers, and local partners to strengthen seafood systems and support resilient working waterfronts. Jaclyn worked to develop and launch the Maine Oyster Trail, an award-winning tourism initiative that highlights the cultural and economic value of coastal communities and the state’s growing aquaculture sector—drawing new audiences to the working waterfront and creating opportunities for farmers through tourism.
With a background in seaweed aquaculture and over a decade of hands-on experience, Jaclyn combines practical, on-the-water knowledge with strategic insight from applied research and international collaborations. She serves on national and regional boards and has shared her work at global forums, including the World Aquaculture Society. Her contributions have earned honors such as the Maine Fishermen’s Forum Distinguished Service Award and the Governor’s Tourism Leadership and Growth Award.
Guided by a deep commitment to people and place, Jaclyn’s work models how aquaculture and fisheries can drive meaningful tourism, sustain local livelihoods, and support the future of coastal communities.
About the Maine Oyster Trail
The Maine Oyster Trail is an award-winning sustainable tourism initiative that connects visitors with Maine’s coastal communities—celebrating maritime heritage while pioneering an innovative model of ocean-based tourism.
The Trail highlights the state’s growing aquaculture sector, guiding visitors to oyster farm tours, raw bars, boat and kayak excursions, and opportunities to buy directly from farmers. With over 90 participating businesses, it’s the first initiative of its kind in the U.S., supported by interactive tools that help visitors navigate oyster tourism and track visits to earn prizes. Beyond attracting visitors, the Trail works closely with oyster farmers to provide the tools and support they need to explore new business opportunities through tourism. Featured in The New York Times and international travel media, it’s been recognized for leadership in sustainable tourism and serves as a model for coastal economic development in the U.S.
Providing insights especially relevant to regions with rich maritime traditions, the Maine Oyster Trail showcases sustainable working waterfronts as powerful drivers of economic resilience and cultural pride—creating meaningful tourism that supports local livelihoods and promotes ocean stewardship.
Rasmus Johnsen
The miracle on the edge of the kingdom
Rasmus Johnsen has been one of the key figures behind turning the west coast of Thy in northwestern Jutland in Denmark into an internationally renowned surfing destination. In this role, he has helped shape what has come to be known as Cold Hawaii – or, as some call it, "the miracle on the edge of the kingdom".
For the past 20 years, Rasmus has worked at the intersection of nature, community, and storytelling – including serving as the “evangelist” for the Cold Hawaii PWA World Cup (the Windsurfing World Championships) and Copencold Hawaii (the SUP World Championships).
He has also contributed to the development of HF Cold Hawaii, a specialised upper secondary education programme focused on surfing, the ocean, and nature. Today, he is deeply involved in establishing Cold Hawaii IB, an international high school programme founded on the same ethos.
Rasmus owns and operates Cowork Klitmøller – an open and collaborative workspace in the heart of the town – and is the initiator of Redebyg Klitmøller, a housing project that adds 45 new homes to support the future of the local community.
Most recently, he has been one of the main forces behind Home of Cold Hawaii – a visionary initiative that transforms a failing shopping centre into a new kind of experience space, a so-called territory, designed to open up Cold Hawaii to new audiences and make the story of the place accessible, engaging, and alive.
Common to his work is a desire to develop a peripheral region of Denmark by building on inherent place-based qualities. Rasmus describes his approach as “the third way”: on the one hand, we must recognise the need for change without surrendering to it; on the other, we must honour the past without becoming captive to it.
From this perspective, he continues to insist that what makes a place both sustainable and meaningful – for settlers and visitors alike – is our ability to evolve and adapt without losing our footing.
Benjamin Donner
Archipelago National Park, Finland
Architect of Regenerative Archipelago Tourism
Benjamin Donner has spent his entire career shaping sustainable tourism in Finland’s vast and fragile archipelago. From his roles as Tourism Director in the Finnish Archipelago, leading his company Aavameri Sea Kayaking, and helping other companies locally, nationally and internationally, he has become a recognized voice in sustainable product development that supports local growth. Benjamin lectures internationally and is widely awarded — both nationally and across the Baltic Sea region — for his innovative, authentic, and sustainability-driven tourism concepts. Through his “Tourism with a Purpose” philosophy, he has shown that tourism can do more than sustain — it can regenerate. His approach attracts a growing community of travellers who seek deep, meaningful experiences and actively contribute to the places they visit—culturally, ecologically, and economically.
In this presentation, Benjamin explores the complex interplay between opportunity and risk in the Finnish Archipelago Sea—a globally unique landscape of over 20,000 islands, home to the Archipelago National Park and the UNESCO Archipelago Sea Biosphere Reserve. With only about 150 islands inhabited year-round, the region’s future depends heavily on tourism, which is at once its largest employer and most visible risk factor. How can tourism avoid draining life from the places it claims to support? Benjamin shares lessons from decades of experience, demonstrating how inviting visitors into authentic encounters with people, landscapes, and local realities can help reshape tourism into a force that strengthens—not threatens—fragile communities. His presentation offers practical insights and real-world examples of how to turn tourism into a place-positive force — a source of belonging, continuity, and hope for coastal and island communities.
Karolina Martinson
Karolina Martinson has been running the company Algblomman for 5 years, based on Styrsö in Gothenburg's southern archipelago. With a background as a professional craftsman, and with many years in restaurants with destination development and sustainable meal experiences, she is building up a business bit by bit where seaweed can be an important part of the solution to how we can make longer-term choices for healthier seas. Seeing and learning from nature, taking advantage of and creating ecosystems and symbioses in the place where you live and work, lifting the people and materials that others look down on or throw away, and digging where you stand has been a large part of her inspiration and working method. With experiences below the surface and at the shoreline, she brings the story of the place to life from both a contemporary and historical perspective, while becoming a co-creator of the future she wants to see.
“We all experience more than we understand. Therefore it is experience, not understanding that shapes our behaviour” - Marschall Mc Lahall
In its business, Algblomman works closely with universities and researchers, schools and young people, accommodation and conference facilities on the surrounding islands, trains chefs and collaborates with food artisans and local food producers to show the possibilities of seaweed in as many different ways as possible and create a range of sustainable experiences by the sea all year round.
Storytelling - storyfeeling - storydoing
The seaweed, and what began as a curious exploration, has led to a year-round activity with a range of experiences where participants get to taste, feel, smell and see seaweed and the sea in new ways. In this way, Algblomman hopes to contribute to a greater understanding and strengthened relationship with the ecosystems we are a part of, and a love that inspires new, more humble choices. On the sea's terms.
Lofoten Beach Camp
Inclusive tourism doesn't have to be that difficult
Driven by passion and creativity, the Benjaminsen family transformed a local campsite into a year-round destination, offering unforgettable ocean experiences to over 60.000 annual visitors. What truly sets them apart is their commitment to accessibility: from adaptive surfing programmes for people with disabilities to barrier-free infrastructure, they ensure that everyone can feel the thrill of the waves – regardless of physical ability.
Emma Arenshøj
It all started with an ocean dip
Havdypp is a wellness brand, born from a single, transformative moment: a dip in the Atlantic Ocean. What began as a personal ritual became the foundation for a regenerative tourism experience rooted in the raw beauty and healing power of the Faroese sea and landscape.
Today, Havdypp offers immersive ocean-based experiences. Handmade sea and land inspired soap bars and oils. We offer the best rated wellness space in Faroe Islands by the water with two spa, sauna & cold plunge – all designed to reconnect people with nature and themselves. We invited people from all over the world to get the ocean dip experience by hosting retreats.
With a deep commitment to nature, every element of Havdypp is shaped in harmony with the environment and the local community. From small-batch production to locally sourced ingredients in our soap bars and other wellness products. We want you to Feel The Nature.
Kyrre Evjenth Slind
An eider duck’s guide to growing your tourism business
In 2004, the Vega Archipelago was granted Unesco World Heritage status as a cultural landscape, with a particular emphasis on the eider duck caretaking practice and women’s crucial role in carrying on the tradition.
Over the next 20 years, the visitor tally to the small Vega community, hosting 1200 residents, doubled tenfold from 4000 to 40 000 pr. year, with the eider duck as a show star. Although only a few bird guardians invite visitors onto their tiny islets to partake in the actual eider duck work, spin off products like a 5 million € visitor’s center, outdoor activities, books, music, and cruise visits speak of a successful tourism business build on the charisma of a nesting bird.
In this presentation, Kyrre Evjenth Slind, speaks on how the common eider duck became a tourist magnet in the Vega Archipelago, and how the Vega society works and strives to benefit and develop as a tourism centered community.
Samson Højgaard
For the past seven years, boat.fo has been doing authentic boat tours with traditional Faroese boats. The tours offer fishing, wildlife, landscape, mindful exploration and stories.
Growing up in the Faroe Islands, Samson Højgaard had a keen interest in fishing, wildlife and the outdoors. For his holidays, he visited his grandparents in Árnafjørður. Some of the best memories are excursions out on the fiord with the family’s traditional Faroese boat. These experiences became the inspiration behind boat.fo.
Samson is a Candidate of Fisheries Science and has work experience from fisheries and teaching. A few years ago, he signed up for a course to become an authorized tour guide. He found it very rewarding, meeting people from many places and showing them around the Faroe Islands.
It was at this point that the idea to establish boat.fo was conceived. Samson asked himself: Could the traditional Faroese boat be used for tours with visitors? Would they enjoy exploring the fiords the same way he did? Could the cultural heritage of the Faroese boat be communicated to outsiders? He has since learned that the answer is “yes”.
boat.fo do tours in several fiords including Árnafjørður. There are different tour variations, all of which have fishing as one of the elements: “Guided boat tour”, “Fishing trip”, “Family tour”, and “Fish, Visit & Dine”.
“On our authentic boat tours we take notice of the marine life. We observe the seabirds, the fish, the seals, and other aquatic life. We try to learn how it all is connected, and in turn, to understand how important the marine environment is to us all.” Samson relates.
Anna Karlsdóttir
University of Iceland, Iceland
Anna Karlsdóttir is a Docent in Human Geography and Tourism Studies at University of Iceland. She has conducted research on cruise ship tourism development in the North Atlantic and the Arctic since 2003. Her interest in seaborn tourism to remote coastal areas grew out of her PhD on coastal community transition in Iceland and the Atlantic. Tourism in the Arctic has been on the rise with the exception of the pandemic period. Mass tourism, like the arrival of ever larger cruise ships, puts a stress test on tourist destinations. Not least more remote communities with lack of infrastructure capacity. Increasing traffic, size of ships and various risks are amplified.
While cruise tourism may generate needed income in many remote coastal communities, there is both a risk of crowding out effect to other more lucrative tourism sectors and that environmental and cultural features of destinations will lose appeal. Questions also arise about socio-cultural sustainability. Climate change, retreating sea ice and the demands of their clients means that ships venture further as last change tourism. Recent incidents provide a first glimpse of the challenges to safety where 95 Cruise ships were recorded alone in the Polar Code area in 2023 (ASTD).
What has changed in cruise ship arrivals in 20 years? How can numerous studies focusing on individual spots rather than connecting between places and countries be brought together to enhance knowledge on this important topic. How have ideas about the impact of this type of tourism in the communities of calls in different Arctic ports changed and what are the most urgent questions regarding sustainable cruise ship tourism in the Arctic and how do they translate to policy responses?
She leads an upcoming book collection on community impact of cruise tourism to remote communities in the Circumpolar Arctic.