Log in
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Create an account
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
CAMPUS 2026 · The Programme
A working programme built around direct experience of landscape, food systems and community. Every session produces an output. Every day builds on the last.
The daily rhythm — Days 1 & 2
The doors open at Koulu. A historic former school building, repurposed as one of Finland's largest brewery restaurants, privatised for CAMPUS. Brewing casks on display, courtyard outside, the atmosphere of a place that already knows how to host a long evening. No formal start. Just drinks, faces, conversation. The room fills.
A short opening to frame what CAMPUS is and what the days ahead will demand. Not a conference. A working programme. The room is here to build something, not to listen. A quick preview of the four days, then straight into the Arrival Challenge debate.
Delegates split into three groups by how they travelled to Turku. Land, Sea, Air. Each group works through what shaped their choice and what it would take to shift that choice at scale. How does a DMO realistically shape visitor behaviour when the levers — price, infrastructure, regulation, narrative — sit across different actors and timeframes? Groups present their collective case back to the room. Prize for the strongest argument.
Dinner and drinks at Koulu. House-brewed beers, seasonal local food, no formal programme. Conversations from the debate continue at their own pace.
Arrival at the Ruissalo Boatyard. Coffee, faces, the working space taking shape. A brief framing of the day to come — three theme blocks in the morning, six workshop options in the afternoon, regroup at the close.
Morning Keynotes & Perspectives
Most destinations spend their time reacting to the future they've inherited. CAMPUS opens with the question of how a destination designs the future it actually wants — the strategic foresight, the trend reading, the visitor behaviour shifts that will define the next decade, and the question of which futures are worth working towards. Three talks frame the territory. The afternoon workshops take it further.
Collaborative Progress is the theme everyone talks about and few do well. Destination success now depends on diverse stakeholders working together across boundaries that historically kept them separate — public, private, community, cross-border, cross-sector. Three talks explore what real collaboration looks like in practice. Not partnership press releases, but the operational reality of building a coalition that holds and delivers.
Circular Economy in tourism is less about waste reduction and more about where the value of tourism actually settles. Local supply chains, retained revenue, food systems, repair and reuse, materials choices in infrastructure. Three talks frame the practical thinking. The afternoon workshops take the principles into the field — in the kitchen, on the bike trail, in the boatyard.
Lunch at the Ruissalo Boatyard. Local, seasonal, sourced from the archipelago.
Afternoon Experiential Workshops
13:45 — 16:30 · Choose one workshop
Three businesses from the outer archipelago present their work — not as case studies, but as working propositions. Hotel Hyppeis on Houtskar built a guest chef series that turns a remote restaurant into a recurring reason to visit. Uto Havshotel occupies the renovated military barracks on Finland’s southernmost inhabited island. The third is a lighthouse hotel reachable only by boat. Each has found its own answer to the same question: how do you build something worth coming to when the infrastructure, the season and the visitor numbers all work against you? The workshop builds from their challenges, not just their success.
A forest trail leads to Villa Marjaniemi. The walk is guided — a mindful moving through the landscape, led by someone who knows what the archipelago’s autumn forest holds and how to read it. The workshop arrives at the sauna having shared the walk. The sauna becomes the working space for collaborative progress. Delegates work the question of what genuine collaboration looks like when the setting strips away the formality — the sauna as a leveller, a space where the conversation can go somewhere it wouldn’t in a conference room.
At Eatery Alex, the workshop happens around the fire. An outdoor barbecue, communal cooking, Chef Richy's approach is uncompromising on waste, and unsparing on the gap between what destinations say about food and what they actually serve.
The Myyntimiesten Sauna is where Turku’s salesmen historically closed deals. Small, hot, disarming — it strips conversation down to what matters. Led by a sauna heritage expert who carries the songs, the rituals, the cultural depth of Finnish sauna practice. The theme is futures thinking, but the sauna sets a different kind of foresight frame — a practice built around presence, tradition and reading what the moment requires. Delegates work the question of how destinations build strategy that takes its cues from what already works, what the place already knows.
Sea kayaking through the Turku Archipelago, with the future of these waters as the working brief. The archipelago is one of the Baltic's most distinctive ecosystems and one of the most exposed to the changes coming.
Delegates cycle from the Ruissalo Boatyard to the Hetkinen Gallery on Ruissalo — a natural cosmetics and scent studio founded by Mona Isotupa in 2018. Every product is made from ingredients sourced from Finnish forests. The packaging is Finnish pine wood. Visit Turku Archipelago commissioned Hetkinen to create the official Saaristo scent, distilling the archipelago into a product. The workshop uses Hetkinen as the working frame for a circular economy discussion — what it looks like to build a business where the supply chain, the material, the brand identity and the landscape are the same thing.
End Of Day
All six workshop groups reconvene at the boatyard. Cocktail drinks, photos from the field, each group sharing what they built. The Value & Impact Wall begins to take shape — a working synthesis that grows across both days and feeds the Turku Manifesto. Kept casual. The work continues, the tone shifts.
Dinner at Restaurant Tårget, central Turku by the River Aura. Modern Nordic style, an informal evening with no formal programme. The conversations from the day continue at the table.
A short opening to set up the day. An AI synthesis of Day 1 — the discussions, the workshop outputs, the patterns the room produced — sets the starting point. Brief preview of the three Day 2 themes and the workshop rotations.
Morning Keynotes & Perspectives
Climate Change Mitigation has moved from aspirational pledge to operational obligation. Net Zero commitments, EU regulation, investor expectations, and the lived reality of destinations already feeling the disruption have made this the most demanding theme on the programme. Three talks frame what mitigation actually looks like in practice — carbon reduction operationally, resilience planning, the political economy of getting binding regulation passed.
Regenerative Action moves beyond the language of 'less harm' and into the question of how tourism can leave a place demonstrably better than it found it. The most interesting destinations in Europe are now building working models for this — visitor as contributor, tourism as restoration, the destination as steward of a complex living system. Three talks frame the territory through the lens of operators who have actually built it.
Visitor Flows is the operational frontline of destination management. Where the volume goes, when, and at what density determines whether a destination thrives or breaks. Three talks bring together practitioners who have moved past the talk — data tools that predict demand and inform action, regulatory levers that have actually been passed, and the seasonality work that spreads pressure across the calendar rather than concentrating it.
Lunch at the Ruissalo Boatyard. Local, seasonal, sourced from the archipelago.
Afternoon Experiential Workshops
13:15 — 16:00 · Choose one workshop
The same three businesses from the outer archipelago return to the boatyard, this time framed around the most difficult question they all face: seasonality. Hotel Hyppeis runs at capacity for a narrow summer window. Uto Havshotel is working to extend its reach across the year. The lighthouse hotel is open only in summer. The archipelago is one of Europe’s clearest illustrations of how seasonality concentrates value, pressure and risk into a narrow window. Delegates work what destinations and operators can actually do about it.
Villa Marjaniemi returns on Day 2, the mindful forest walk now framed around what the landscape is telling us. What the archipelago’s autumn forest shows about change, adaptation and what regeneration actually looks like in a living system. The sauna at the end of the trail hosts the synthesis. Delegates work the question of what regenerative tourism looks like when it starts with the landscape as teacher rather than backdrop — how destinations build practices that restore rather than extract.
Food is one of tourism's largest climate footprints and one of the most actionable. At Eatery Alex, the workshop returns to the kitchen with the climate question front and centre — what destinations source, how supply chains are structured, what menus are designed to enable.
The Myyntimiesten Sauna returns on Day 2 with the climate question. The Finnish sauna is one of the most energy-intensive cultural practices in the world, and one of the most loved. It is also increasingly being reimagined — wood-fired, solar-heated, sea-cooled, carbon-reduced. The sauna heritage expert leads a session that sits inside the tension: how do you protect a cultural practice while honestly confronting its footprint? Delegates work the question of what climate mitigation looks like when it runs through culture rather than around it.
Kayaking returns, framed as the working space for regenerative action. The archipelago's waters are not a backdrop — they are a working system that responds to the choices destinations make. Delegates work how tourism can actively restore the systems it depends on.
The Hetkinen Gallery returns on Day 2, this time as the frame for a discussion about place, brand and the economics of local identity. The Saaristo scent — commissioned by Visit Turku Archipelago from Hetkinen — is the starting point. A destination brand, a local producer, a product that is literally made from the landscape. Delegates work through how destinations build and protect the value of place — what it means to translate a landscape into a product, an experience, a reason to spend more and stay longer, without diluting what made it worth visiting.
End Of Day
The Wall is where CAMPUS comes together. The discussions, workshop outputs, and patterns from two full days are synthesised — AI-supported, room-led, interactive. Delegates work directly on the Value & Impact Wall, mapping what the room has built into a coherent picture of where the sector is and where it needs to go. The output becomes the foundation of the Turku Manifesto, published in the weeks following with named contributors credited.
An optional 30-minute cold visit to Båthus Sauna, a new addition at the Ruissalo Boatyard. Designed by one of Finland's leading sauna architects and built in part from recycled materials, Båthus is a working example of the themes CAMPUS spent the day discussing.
Informal evening at Turku's indoor market. Multiple food vendors, multiple cuisines, no fixed seating plan. Delegates explore at their own pace, eat where they like, and reform conversations across whatever tables fill up.
Day 3 — Friday 2 October
A welcome from the Herrankukkaro host, a traditional terva drink, and the framing of what the retreat is for. Delegates who want to disconnect fully leave their phones at reception — a small ceremony marks the choice. A challenge card waits in each cabin. The dinner discussion later that evening builds on what each cabin works through.
Building directly on The Wall from Day 2, small groups begin developing the Turku Manifesto — the strategic frameworks, working solutions, and approaches the room has surfaced across two full days of CAMPUS. AI captures and synthesises in real time. The output of this session feeds the deep-dive work that follows in the afternoon.
Lunch at Koivuniemen Janne's archipelago buffet — up to twenty different preparations of fish drawn from the surrounding waters. The kind of meal that is itself an argument for what the day has been working on.
The core working session of the retreat. Small groups split across Herrankukkaro's buildings to develop specific manifesto themes in depth. Less structured than the morning, more time to follow a single thread until it produces something worth bringing back to the wider group.
A late-afternoon window of archipelago experiences before the evening. Options include rowing in a traditional fyke boat, the nature trails around Herrankukkaro, and the smuggler caves that gave this part of the archipelago its working history. Each one a different way of being in the place.
Herrankukkaro's signature experience. The underground smoke sauna, one of the largest in Finland, takes hours to heat and carries a different quality of warmth from a standard sauna. Heated baths sit along the shoreline. The sea is there for anyone brave enough. No programme. Just the sauna, the cold, and the conversation that happens between the two.
Dinner around the campfire — grilled food, the archipelago at dusk, the conversation that follows the sauna. The dinner is anchored around the challenge cards each cabin received on arrival. Each cabin contributes what they worked through. The discussion builds organically, fuelled by the day and the firelight.
Day 4 — Saturday 3 October
An optional silent morning. Rowing in a traditional Finnish rowboat at sunrise, no conversation, the archipelago at its most peaceful. For delegates who want to start the final day in that register.
The final working session. Groups present the strategic frameworks they've developed. AI synthesis pulls everything from the retreat together with the outputs from Days 1 and 2. The Turku Manifesto takes its working shape — to be edited, designed and published in the weeks following CAMPUS, with named contributors and Challenge Hosts credited.
The formal close of CAMPUS. Brief reflections from the room, commitments delegates want to carry back to their destinations, the preview of what gets published and when. Phones returned to those who left them. Thanks to the hosts, the speakers, and the room.
A final lunch together at Herrankukkaro, with packed lunch options for delegates who need to leave for travel.
Every session produces an output. Every day builds on the last. Delegates return to their organisations with strategy, frameworks and published work they were part of creating — not notes from a panel.
Register your interest →