Speakers
José Gimeno
Partner Director – Cultural Tourism
eCultura
Madrid, Spain
José Gimeno is Partner Director in E-Cultura. E-cultura is a company in the Imagination Society. Our Mission is to improve the socio-economic development of the territories putting into value their cultural and natural resources. As an innovating organization in the field of culture and tourism, our aim is to transform those resources into experience business that are able to generate wealth and jobs and fix a population proud of his identity and linked to his culture. Our main business areas are Heritage, Rural Development, Cultural Tourism, Territory Branding and Cultural Management.
José Gimeno holds a degree in Chemistry from the University of Zaragoza, a Master in Business Administration by the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and other post grade qualifications in the fields of Tourism, Quality and Human Behavior.
C. Michael Hall
Professor
University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand
Michael Hall is Professor in Marketing at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Organisation and Management, Sheffield Hallam University in the UK and Docent in the Department of Geography, University of Oulu. Co-editor of Current Issues in Tourism he has published widely in tourism and related fields such as heritage and regional development including over 50 books and 300 articles and book chapters.
One of his most recent books is on Innovation and Tourism written with Allan Williams and published by Routledge (2008). Some of his recent work has examined the importance of the innovation systems within which firms are embedded, the importance of servicescapes and place to people's experiences, as well as the developments of improved models of the service firm in order to understand innovation and adaptive processes.
Although much of his research and teaching looks at experiences and how they are created and understood he regards much of the work on the experience economy and the even more recent focus of experience advocates on authenticity as intellectually bankrupt and little more than a trendy bandwagon effect. That said he also believes that provocation is often an important part of a learning experience and regards understanding experiences and the creative meeting of them within public-private partnerships as critical to firm and regional success.
Erik Hedblad
Managing Director
Åreföretagarna AB / Åre 2020
Åre, Sweden
Our vision is to make Åre the most attractive alpine all year round resort in Europe by the year 2020, through unique experiences, sustainability and hostmanship. Our mission is to develop and market Åre as an all year round destination with emphasis on spring, summer and fall. We do it through Åreföretagarna AB, a new marketing and development company, co-ownded by the local business community, representing almost 200 businesses in Åre.
Erik Hedblad is Managing Director of Åreföretagarna AB. He holds a M.Sc. in Business from the Stockholm School of Economics and has worked in IT, HR, retail, and business consulting. As the director of a company representing 200 individual entrepreneurs, Erik has a special interest in how to develop the complex experience value chain through cooperation, system thinking, and local community process.
Jussi Huotari
Co-founder, CIO
TripSay.com
Helsinki, Finland
Jussi Huotari is co-founder and CIO at TripSay.com, a traveler website built on social media and internet technologies. On TripSay, travel is about experiences and not about booking the cheapest flights.
TripSay was founded in 2006 in Helsinki, Finland. The growing start-up is funded by venture capital investors. TripSay's objective is to offer its users the best destination content and become a top ten travel content site for english speaking holiday travelers. TripSay.com community is currently invite-only.
As a web 2.0 travel entrepreneur Jussi has a special interest in developing business concepts supporting the travel industry transition to digital age and travel community building through social media. Jussi's background is in e-commerce and consumer internet services.
Jussi Huotari holds a degree in computer science from Helsinki University of Technology in Finland, including business studies at Strathclyde University in the UK.
Pia Kokki
Managing Director
Savonlinna Travel Ltd.
Savonlinna, Finland
Pia Kokki is managing director of Savonlinna Travel Ltd. Savonlinna Travel Ltd is a regional tourism organisation for the marketing and sales of tourist services in the Savonlinna region, which comprises, in addition to Savonlinna itself, the districts of Enonkoski, Kerimäki, Kesälahti, Parikkala, Punkaharju, Rantasalmi, Savonranta and Sulkava. In short, Savonlinna Tourist Service is a tour operator concentrating on destination management. In addition to the regional operations, Savonlinna Travel Ltd handles duties outsourced to it by the Savonlinna Town Council’s tourism branch. The organisation is comprised of the districts listed above as well as 50 tourism enterprises.
Päivi Lappalainen
Program Director
Tourism and Experience Management Competence Cluster
Turku Touring
Turku, Finland
Päivi Lappalainen (Master of Arts in Cultural Research) is working as Program Director for Tourism and Experience Management Competence Cluster in Southwest Finland for Turku Touring. Turku Touring is a regional marketing, sales and development organisation for tourism business mainly owned by the city of Turku (http://www.turkutouring.fi/).
Päivi has been involved in developing culturally sustainable tourism products for almost 20 years. She has also managed the improvement of regional socio-economical structure in the Turku region. As a researcher she has worked in number of museums and has a long perspective in culture and tourism in many ways.
Turku will be the European capital of culture in year 2011. This will be a great challenge – and a great chance for whole Finland in building cultural tourism destinations.
Anne Lukkarila
Development Manager
Haaga Group / Haaga Institute-foundation / Haaga-Perho Development services
Anne Lukkarila has been working with quality matters in tourism branch since 1999. She is responsible of coordinating finnish national quality programme administrated by Finnish Tourist Board´s Quality One Thousand 1Q00 for tourism companies and Destination Quality Net programmes (DQN ® and DMN™) for tourism destinations. With LEO Haaga-Perho has developed Experience DQN programmes which are quality programmes to destinations which want to be number one in creative industries. Haaga-Perho has recently developed new quality development model “Culture DQN” in co-operation with Turku Touring.
The job involves all aspects of the development management and supervision, such as land use and town planning, infrastructure development, necessary environmental investigations and impact studies, tendering and evaluating bidding documents, procurement of services and public relations. At the same time, his role has been essential for identifying key investors and entrepreneurs, marketing investment opportunities to potential investors, mobilizing financing sources, identifying new investment areas and technologies in the field of ICT and Energy Efficiency and advising the city mayor for policy direction and economic development of the city.
Juha Seppälä
Mikko Vartiainen A Finnish native, Mikko has worked in travel distribution for nearly 20 years. Mikko has a broad knowledge of airline, hotel and travel industries. Mikko is a respected travel industry commentator, frequently writing in trade publications, and speaking at conferences. Mikko holds a Master's degree in International Marketing from Turku School of Economics and Business Administration.
Leena ZittlingCEO, Prodemic Consulting Group Oy Ltd
President, European ProClusters Association - EPROCA
Klaukkala, Finland
Leena Zittling is an Editor-in-Chief in a JOHTOTAITO® (Executive Magazine) –publication, which is the only publication in Finland focused on cluster issues for cluster practitioners and is coming out 3 times per year in electronic form. Magazine is sending out more than 30 countries around the world.
Mrs. Zittling is also a Conference Director in Competitiveness Forum event, a national forum for cluster practitioners, which will organize once a year together with the regional authorities and the world’s leading cluster organization called The Competitiveness Institute (TCI) located in Barcelona.
Mrs. Zittling made an assignment for The Competitiveness Institute (TCI) about the issue ”The Gender Initiative for TCI” .The assignment was presented in Lyon, 2006 at the World conference of TCI. She also made a suggestion for Finnish Ministry of Interior regarding “Finclusters -competitiveness office” in 2007.
Chairmen
V.A.Heikkinen Research Manager, Principal Lecturer, Future Consultant
University of Lapland
Rovaniemi, Finland
V.A. Heikkinen (PhD, Home Economic Teacher, Chef) has 25 years experience in the tourism, hospitality and food industry and education. Heikkinen provides also consulting and executive training services to industry, professional associations and academic institutions in the travel and tourism sector. I his consulting activities, Heikkinen has worked in more than 20 countries. At the moment Heikkinen works as a Research Manager at the University of Lapland.
Anna Häkkinen 
Ilkka Kauppinen Managing Director
Kodja Consulting
Rovaniemi, Finland
Ilkka Kauppinen is one of the leading Finnish Internet marketing professionals and scholars in tourism. He has an extensive knowledge of eBusiness development, information and communication technologies as well as Internet marketing. Ilkka is a regular lecturer on eBusiness and eMarketing in tourism for various organisations, including many universities and SME networks in Finland. In addition to consultation, he is currently writing a doctoral thesis on Internet marketing in tourism at the University of Lapland and starting up the eTourism Competence Center Finland under the University of Joensuu. You can read more about Ilkka's thoughts about tourism in Finnish in his blog. In his free time Ilkka enjoys the great outdoors in Lapland.
Kaj Kostiander 
Kirsi MikkolaManaging Director
Business Trainer Kirsi Mikkola Ltd,
Rovaniemi, Finland
Since 2001, Kirsi Mikkola has worked as a consultant and trainer for electronic business and marketing in regional and company-specific ICT utilization projects. Mikkola has also consulted and implemented a number of national level electronic commerce data system acquisition processess for the public administration and private sectors.
Kirsi Mikkola operates as a certified Experience Trainer for the Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry, as a Haaga-Perho coordinated Q1000 Programme Trainer and as a Network Tutor for the AVERKO network coordinated by the Open Online University of Applied Sciences. Mikkola operates also as a Part-Time Teacher of internet business and data processing for the Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences. Kirsi Mikkola has operated as Project Manager for the start-up project for the enhancement of expertise of e-commerce for the Province of Lapland (Lapland Online) and before that as Project Manager in the collective coordination project for the enhancement of expertise of e-commerce for the Province of Lapland (Lapland Online 2013). Mikkola has worked also as Project Manager for the Lapland Portal Project for the Regional Council of Lapland and as ICT Manager & Coordinator for Lapland Marketing Ltd.
Kristian Sievers Program Director
Tourism and Experience Management Competence Cluster
Culminatum Ltd Oy
Helsinki, Finland
Kristian Sievers (MSc, Bachelor of Hospitality Management) has been working in various positions in tourism and Experience Industry in France, UK, Estonia, and of course in Finland. He has been working for tourism consultancy, tourism education and has held several management positions in the industry. Currently Sievers is working for Culminatum Ltd Oy as Program Director for Tourism and Experience Management Competence Cluster in Helsinki Metropolitan area. He is interested especially in the pricing of experiences and experience management in tourism destinations.
Sanna Tarssanen Acting CEO
LEO
Rovaniemi, Finland
Sanna Tarssanen has been working in LEO since 2004 within different projects as a Project Manager and Development Manager. Currently she is the Acting CEO of the company. She is also the only B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore Certified Experience Economy Expert in Finland. She has graduated as MSoC in Cultural Studies of Tourism from University of Lapland. Her background is in Tourism Industry as an entrepreneur and a destination manager. Her work in the Experience sector include articles and publications such as the Handbook for Experience Tourism Agents as well the Experience Pyramid, a framework for analyzing and developing experience products. She is especially interested in finding ways to measure, analyse and create meaningful experiences.
