Cultural ecosystem services and wellbeing policies for tourism – transnational and national challenges and opportunities

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present the results of a comparative study about cultural ecosystem services (CES ), wellbeing and tourism policies in UK , Finland and Poland in the years 2012–2018. We start with a review of the theoretical background and academic conceptualizations of CES and wellbeing tourism, and go on to review indicative policies at transnational and national levels in selected case countries. We compare the countries' policies related to tourism, wellbeing and CES , and we discuss conceptual linkages between them. The results indicate substantial differences at European level, starting from Finland and UK , where the policies analysed show important linkages between the three study areas, to Poland where tourism, wellbeing and CES are treated separately and with only moderate or weak linkages. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges in transferring CES and wellbeing concepts to different cultural-linguistic and political-administrative national and transnational contexts, but highlight also potential opportunities for transfer of learning and experiences between the countries studied.