The Nordic Journey

Paras Loomba is a trained military officer and electrical engineer - and an award winning sustainable tourism leader, almost by accident. Paras is joining us today to talk about his expedition company Global Himalayan Expeditions or GHE, where he takes groups of people into the remote Himalayan mountains bringing not just tourists and currency, but also electricity, light and community development...

In this episode we talk to travel writer and keynote speaker Doug Lansky about what is wrong with tourism today and what needs to be done to fix it. Doug is a popular speaker on the topic of tourism and has recently published a book named Why Tourism is Broken and How to Fix It. We talk about his book and some of the examples of overtourism, mismanagement of tourism, tourism taxes and the protecti...

In our 17th episode of the Nordic Journey podcast we continue to explore different venues of regenerative tourism, this time moving over to Canada to learn about indigenous tourism. Sébastien Desnoyers-Picard is from the Wendat Nation in Quebec City in Canada and the founder and CEO of Destination Original Indigenous Tourism (DO-IT). Sébastien talks to us about the value of indigenous tourism, the...

In our 16th episode of The Nordic Journey, we talk to Dr. Carina Ren from Aalborg University. Carina is joining us from Sisimiut in West-Greenland and will be telling us about her research on climate change, sustainable tourism development and the Arctic - and how coastal communities are adapting. Her current research project is Regenerative Economies in Arctic Coastal Communities. Here are some b...

Iran is making headlines all over the world at the moment - and yet we are getting very little news from inside the country. What is happening, how are people coping, what is the impact on tourism?   There is of course no international tourism there due to the war, but the tourism operators are still there, trying to figure out what comes next. In this episode which was recorded on Friday Mar...

Can you use tourism for a rewilding biology project? In this episode we talk to Kim Worrmann Jensen, a former rock star and current sustainability champion from Destination Trekantsomådet in Denmark. He is the head of sustainability and has been developing products that are based on regenerative tourism concepts. One interesting project he has been working on and developing is the rewilding of Møl...

High in the Himalayas, locked between the giant countries of India and China, is a small Kingdom that somehow has evaded colonialism and western influence for hundreds of years. This is Drug Yul, the Kingdom of the Thundering Dragon, better known as Bhutan. In this show we have as a special guest the former head of the national tourism board in Bhutan, Dorji Dhradhul, who is sharing with us his cu...

The antithesis to bullying, which we see too much of in the media nowadays, is to live decently - says Geoffrey Lipman, co-founder of SunX Malta, former Executive Director of IATA, former president of WTTC and former Assistant Secretary General at UNWTO. Together with Dr. Hans Friederich, a nature and conservation specialist with vast experience from Africa, Asia and Europe they are running Sun X...

A twenty year old Japanese girl falls in love with sea kayaking - which leads her to one of the northern most villages of the world, Qaanaaq in North Greenland. Today we hear from Sakiko Daorana, one marriage, three children and twenty something years later, where she operates expeditions in this extremely remote corner of the world. Greenland has been getting a lot of attention recently and the v...

We head back to Norway in this episode, one of the leading countries when it comes to sustainable tourism. There we speak to a serial entrepreneur, Håvard Utheim, who has founded several companies with different angles and approaches to sustainable tourism, an adventure travel company, gear rental, travel tech company, accommodation company and a company focused on transparency in travel. Listen t...

In a World full of bad news, let's start 2026 with some inspiring, positive news. I have gathered a selection of news, mostly related to conservation and tourism and a couple outside of that. Reminders of what we can achieve when we really put our minds to it. How are we exactly doing? Where are we heading? Is tourism a contributor? When we read general news it feels like everything is going downh...

Petter Gulli worked for 30 years in the advertising industry until he flipped the table in 2018. With 12 years to go according the new ICPP report he started his new company 12 Years, promoting hope and inspiring people not be discouraged by doomsday news. It was not a denial but a smart approach to moving people and companies into the right transformative process. In this podcast we go wide, talk...

In this episode we talk with Donna Isabella Caroline Sundbo, a scholar that has written about tourism, sustainability and food culture. In the episode we talk about anthropology and local cultures, the importance of the food scene and the three most common mistakes destinations do when it comes to food culture.

Closed for Maintenance is a project that has gained international attention and put the Faroe Islands on the map as one of the most innovative tourism destinations when it comes to sustainable tourism. But Closed for Maintenance is far from the only cool thing the Faroe Islands have done, so we got Jóhan Pauli Helgason, Development Manager at Visit Faroe Islands to join us on The Nordic Journey ta...

In this episode of The Nordic Journey podcast we talk to Anu Nylund from Mood of Finland. Anu has been working for decades on the education of responsible tourism and now regenerative tourism, helping small companies find their way. She has also her own project called Love Forest Finland which is a fantastic example of how you can take a common problem and turn it into a regenerative project, spre...

In our fourth episode on sustainable tourism development we meet Raj Gyawali, founder of Social Tours in Kathmandu in Nepal. Raj is one of the sharpest minds I know in the industry and started working with regenerative tourism long before the concept was invented. Our paths crossed long ago for a totally different reason, but it has been very inspiring to follow his journey. He is still twenty yea...

Who are the key stakeholders of tourism development and how do you engage them? In this episode of The Nordic Journey we talk to Ásta Kristín Sigurjónsdóttir, CEO of the Iceland Tourism Cluster, about the role of the tourism cluster in building a more inclusive, sustainable tourism industry in Iceland. The cluster is built on three pillars, sustainability, digitalisation and innovation with active...

An interview with Alex Farlander, AI Director, Journey Designer and Future Navigator in Estonia - where we talk about the battle for sustainability in tourism, ethical principles in tourism, threats in the current environment, AI and what potential solutions we may see in the future. Enjoy!

Welcome to the first episode of The Nordic Journey podcast, where I introduce the concept, why we are focusing on sustainable tourism and some of the challenges that come with it.