Fiskars Village honoured

The old Fiskars factory village in southern Finland has won the Royal Destination Award for 2007.

Fiskars Exhibition on cutting weapons

The Royal Awards Foundation was established in 1996 to recognise excellence and promote best practice within sustainable development in Europe. The Royal Destination Award is a new initiative to honour excellence in the promotion of sustainable tourist destinations and the first award goes to Finland.  

Design co-operative
Fiskars village, about an hour's drive West from Helsinki, is home to Fiskars Co-operative, founded in 1996. Today the Co-operative has more than 100 members whose work represents a wide variety of arts, crafts and design. The largest professional groups are artists, cabinetmakers, ceramicists, and industrial designers.

Fiskars has quickly established itself as a showcase for high-quality Finnish art and industrial design. The annual exhibitions, which are now among the largest events in Finland, receive a lot of media attention and visitors.  

Lots of Visitors 
The number of visitors increases with each exhibition, and these days the annual Fiskars exhibition attracts some 25,000 visitors. Each year approximately 150.000 visitors find their way to the Fiskars Village, which is beautifully situated in the South of Finland and deserves to be honored for “keeping sustainable development principles in mind as a dying industrial town has been transformed into an arts and tourism centre”.  

Orange Scissors
The history of Fiskars village is mainly the history of industrialisation and iron production. Today contemporary crafts, arts and design have replaced the former metal industry. The valuable industrial buildings have been revitalized to serve as fine studios and workshops. Approximately 10 kilometers away the sophisticated factory producing the famous ”Fiskars” – the orange-handled Fiskars scissors – is produced. 

The Kings Road
Anyone interested in modern design, arts and crafts should definitely make a trip for Fiskars. Fiskars Village is furthermore situated at the old coastal road from Helsinki to the West, the so-called Kings Road that leads to Raumu and later on the Kvarken Archipelago, both on the Unesco World Heritage list. In general the cultural routes in Finland are very well serviced, and it seems as if Finland is a well organised tourist destination just lying there waiting to be discovered.
_____________________________________

The nominees and runners-up
From more than 20 destinations in 13 European countries, a prominent jury of sustainable tourism experts nominated 15 applicants selected 3 finalists to the award, and eventually the winner. All nominees will be published on DestiNet, the Sustainable Tourism Information Portal of the European Environment Agency, as examples of good practice.