Economic Benefits from National Parks

Local businesses benefit from the funds granted by the Finnish government for national parks and hiking areas, as the funds return to society many-folded through local entrepreneurship and jobs. Government budget funds are used for building and maintaining hiking facilities in national parks and hiking areas. The private sector creates tourism business services around these areas.

The Finnish government finances the trails and campfire sites, i.e. the infrastructure of national parks and hiking areas. These facilities help create tourism industry in the vicinity of the protected areas.

The input-output ratio of the national parks is good: when Metsähallitus, Parks & Wildlife Finland invests one euro of tax payers’ money in the hiking services of national parks, the local economy benefits over 10 euros, on average. For national parks located next to ski resorts, the average input-output ratio is still higher. Close to big cities and the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, the visitation impacts are primarily recreation and health benefits.

Results in 2025

The total local income impact of all 63 sites previously included in the calculations amounted to 412.3 million euros in 2025, which is nearly the same as the previous year (412.4 million euros).

The local economic impacts of national parks amounted to 277.9 million euros in 2025, which is 8 million euros and 2.8% less than in 2024. The decrease is slightly greater (0.6 percentage points) than the decline in national park visitor numbers between 2024 and 2025. This is explained by the fact that the parks with the highest economic impacts (e.g., Pallas–Yllästunturi, Oulanka, Koli) experienced a larger drop in visitor numbers than other national parks.

Visitor numbers in national hiking areas, historical sites, and other significant destinations under visitor monitoring increased slightly from 2024 to 2025, and their local economic impacts increased accordingly. For this reason, the overall local economic impacts in 2025 remained at the same level as in 2024.

Metsähallitus’ Parks & Wildlife Finland is renewing the calculation method used to assess the local economic impacts of protected areas and recreational sites. In 2025, site-specific results will no longer be published, because visitor surveys were not conducted in 2024 or 2025. As a result, the available data are too outdated to allow reliable analysis of results for individual parks. The local economic impacts for 2025 have been calculated by multiplying each site’s 2024 local economic impact by the change in its visitor numbers from 2024 to 2025, and then compiling these into totals for national parks, national hiking areas, historical sites, other significant destinations, and all sites combined.

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