Good practice:

Alvar Aalto routes in Jyväskylä region - the capital city of Alvar Aalto´s architecture

Alvar Aalto is an intrinsic, natural strength of the region. Aalto went to school, started a family and began his career in Jyväskylä. It’s possible to find the world’s largest number of masterful buildings designed by the world-famous architect and academician Alvar Aalto in Jyväskylä region. The portfolio of 29 locations includes for instance Alvar Aalto Museum, Muurame Church and Säynätsalo Town Hall, which is regarded as one of Aalto’s finest works.
Alvar Aalto Routes is an entity combining cultural heritage, local nature and human powered or green mobility. The concept makes Alvar Aalto's relationship to nature visible.
Alvar Aalto routes concept is implemented and maintained by Visit Jyväskylä. Visit Jyväskylä is a local destination management and marketing organisation (DMO) established jointly by 9 municipalities of Jyväskylä region. Visit Jyväskylä is responsible for coordinating and delivering joint marketing, content delivery and development for Visit Jyväskylä's online channels, printed materials, campaigns, fairs and building partnerships alongside with maintaining network cooperation. The main stakeholders are the City of Jyväskylä and other municipalities, tourism companies and other tourism operators like the museums, Alvar Aalto Foundation, Visit Finland, other regional DMOs and the Federation of Finnish Tourist Guide Association.
Beneficiaries are the local citizens, domestic and international visitors and local and international entrepreneurs.

Setting up by group of 8 key-persons, total input of one person year:
Visit Jyväskylä/tourism and marketing (4), Alvar Aalto Foundation/Aalto history, works and facilities (2). Federation of Finnish Tourist Guide Association/Guidance services (2).
Running: Public financing of 10 000 € / year.

According to the feedback and the rising amount of both domestic and foreign visitors and route users, the practise is very successful. Alvar Aalto -website is the most popular website of Visit Jyväskylä sites. Number of visitors have doubled in year 2016, when Alvar Aalto routes were announced. Total number of visitor in Visit Jyväskylä websites is now 200000 per year. Number of visitors in Alvar Aalto museum (total 25274 year 2017, increased by 1000) and in Säynätsalo town hall have increased.

Local entrepreneurs still need a boost to understand and appreciate the enormous possibilities of driving benefits on Aalto -brand connected to local nature and existing trails.

Alvar Aalto is one of the TOP 5 targets for foreign tourists in Finland. Main succes factor is an exceptionally strong, internationally well-known brand connected to natural environment and well maintained, existing, mainly public network of trails.
A strong brand of international interest can benefit widely many stakeholders: citizens, domestic or international tourists and local entrepreneurs. Aalto theme was integrated with regional strengths: nature, wellness and sport. Number of individual travellers and sustainable or ecotourism is increasing, as well as the need for digitally accessible services.
It is important to combine expertise concerning high values and the need to protect the cultural heritage of f.ex. Aalto to tourism potential: Know-how as well finding possibilities for creating different kind of trails suitable for a variety of users. It's also important to involve transport companies and to find new kind of entrepreneurship possibilities connected to the theme.