Forest and Well-Being Services for Tourists

Well-being and the health effects of forests and nature have gained research interest during recent years. Forest therapy is a therapeutic method which prevents and cures different kinds of diseases through the help of nature. Forest therapy is focused not only for healthy people to strengthen them physically and fight against stress and fatigue, but also for the sick. The treatment of forest therapy consists mainly in walking trails, jogging and exercising in the middle of forests. Forest therapy has several proven health benefits, for example stress and blood sugar level reduction, improved immunity and even anti-cancer effects. In many Euro-pean countries, a significant proportion of the inhabitants of large cities, suffer from mental exhaustion, heart and blood vessel diseases, overweight and lack of physical exercise. People all over the world are losing touch with nature, which is leading to decreased awareness of the environment, biodiversity and its positive health impacts. The objective of this development project was to create service concepts for forest therapy and well-being services for the use of Metsähallitus. The development project was executed using qualitative methods. The material of this study was collected with the following meth-ods: literature review, specialist interviews and contextual interviews. The user-centred ser