Cultural tourism

By developing cultural tourism, it is possible to support the objectives in the Strategy for Cultural Policy 2025 of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The objectives are creative work and production, inclusion and participation in arts and culture, and cultural basis and continuity.

The Roadmap for the National Development of Cultural Tourism outlines the measures for developing cultural tourism until 2030. In addition, the Roadmap serves as a national guiding document in the activities of the Cultural Routes programme of the Council of Europe.

The Cultural Routes programme of the Council of Europe is a key form of international cooperation in the field of cultural tourism. Finland acceded to the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe (EPA) in 2018. The Ministry of Education and Culture participates in the administrative and expert work of the Agreement and represents Finland on the Governing Board of EPA. The Governing Board is responsible for awarding the ‘Council of Europe Cultural Route’ certification and evaluating certified routes regularly.

The overall development of tourism in Finland is guided by Finland’s tourism strategy for 2022–2028. The strategy covers measures for the years 2022 and 2023. In terms of cultural tourism, the focus in 2022–2023 is placed on internationalisation, development of product range and strengthening of cooperation.

Roadmap for the National Development of Cultural Tourism 

The Roadmap for the National Development of Cultural Tourism was published in 2023. It is based on a proposal prepared by a working group that was appointed for the period of 2021–2022.

The main objective of the Roadmap is to establish a common direction for sustainable and competitive cultural tourism of the future. The objectives and measures laid down in the Roadmap are related to the development of cooperation, sustainability, the range of cultural tourism products, digitalisation and knowledge-based management, as well as the utilisation of international activities and especially the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe in cultural tourism. Sustainable development has been taken into account in the Roadmap in a crosscutting manner.

The Ministry of Education and Culture will launch the implementation of the Roadmap in 2023.


Roadmap for the National Development of Cultural Tourism. (in Finnish)

Finland’s updated tourism strategy for 2022-2028 (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland)

Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme

Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme (Finnish Heritage Agency)

Cultural tourism, in Finnish (Visit Finland)

Study: Visitation sustainability encourages the responsible development of cultural environments (Finnish Government)