Video and storytelling - the competitive edge in sustainability communication : investigation of small Finnish tourism businesses

Abstract

Small tourism businesses are operating in an environment where consumers demand their practices to be sustainable and transparently communicated. At the same time there is increasing suspicion that information coming directly from companies is disingenuous. Especially small and medium sized businesses are struggling to balance growing demand with their limited resources.

This thesis was commissioned by Visit Salla with the aim to support small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) certified with Visit Finland’s Sustainable Travel Finland (STF) label by analysing the current state of sustainability communication among them and providing tips of how storytelling and use of video can improve their efforts. This was achieved in five phases using a mixed method approach: preliminary investigation of STF companies, establishment of the theoretical background and best practices, creation and testing of evaluation matrices, analysis of STF websites and video content utilising matrices, and testing of results by means of semi-structured interviews and a survey.

This study highlights three common shortcomings in sustainability communication among Finnish SMBs: it is not specific to the company, insufficiently frequent and lacks evidence supporting sustainability claims. These three issues were identified for both content published on companies’ web pages as well as in their video materials.

The practical implication of this thesis lies in its suggestions for concrete actions to improve sustainability communication among STF companies. In academia it can also be utilised as best practice example, or for comparison of either other destinations or future sustainability practices within the same region.