Mood of Finland Company offers education and tourism services. We are developing new services under the sub – names of Mood of Nature and Love Forest Finland.
Work of the Tour Guide is part of my professional identity
In a rainy Saturday morning in April 2021, I was wondering what the Mood of Finland company’s activities looked like in five years’ time. I have interest to design new services and concepts to offer in regenerative way.
The background to the new is also a return to the past. I started to reflect the past and the present on my work as a Tour guide. I like the possibilities to experiment new concepts through designing new guided tours and I tend to find opportunities to do so more in nature than in urban environment.
For the first time, I did guidance work at the age of 16 to 18 as a summer worker in a little village called Loppi, in the southern part of Finland. It was a museum area which included the summer house and sauna which used to belong to the famous Finnish Marshal Mannerheim. It was not only about guiding but I also learned to bake the best bun, taught by older hostess at the museum café.
International experience reinforced an open attitude to diversity
As a young professional in my twenties, I went abroad to work as a Tour Guide for the Finnish Touroperator Aurinkomatkat. After leaving the Finnish company I still worked several years in Spanish tourism companies and stayed for more than ten years abroad all together. As a Tour Guide, I learnt to be a flexible customer service professional who understood diversity. I also made wonderful friends for the rest of my life. 
I returned to Finland as a young mother and wanted to learn more
After returning to Finland, I continued my studies towards pedagogical studies and Master’s studies in Social Sciences, in Tourism research. I worked in tourism and guide education for 14 years, had opportunity to develop new learning programs and qualified myself as a Helsinki guide. I remember with warmth all the wonderful guides I’ve met during those years 
The most beautiful training service I developed then was so called Travel Asssistant -training for professionals who had moved to Finland and didn´t yet speak fluent Finnish but wanted to study Tourism and verify competence. Travel Assistant training was developed together with the Finnish Tourism Association, SMAL ry with the aim to offer the first step towards to work as a guide in Finland. The skills of professionals who have moved to Finland, should be valued much more in the tourism industry.
Later I got a great opportunity to develop the concept of work-related immigration and the integration into Finnish society. I worked together with international team and with Finnish Tourism enterprises as well as with the Finnish authorities. More information can be found here: Matkailudiili
I have guided hundreds of Spanish-speaking visitors in Helsinki and have sometimes opportunity to host special guests as journalists. The latest visit has been the one of the French journalist Corinne, who wanted to understand Finnish happiness and our connection to nature.
Before Covid pandemia I used to travel couple of times a year to Spain to teach responsible travel and customer service to new foreign guides at private Travel Guide School.
Mood of Nature and Love Forest Finland
Mood of Nature is a sub-name of Mood of Finland Comapny and that part of the company’s operations, which I now want to develop and produce new services in regenerative way in 2021. I am actively developing nature experiences such as ”Walking with silence in Forest” including the possibility of planting a symbolic Tree of Love. Read more: Love Forest Finland
Sometimes we discuss about future plans with my son Daniel, who spends a lot of time making music and snowboarding. Daniel also enjoys nature and has completed a vocational degree in the Wilderness and Nature Guide. I follow with interest his professional career. Sometimes he is involved in the activities of Mood of Finland, but just as much and to the extent that he wants to.
The most beautiful guidance, which I have participated, was when 8-year-old Daniel guided in Häme Medieval Castle. Daniel had been on a school trip and wanted to take his mother (me) the following weekend to have the same experience he had. The story of an unfortunate castle maiden who could not get the man she loved and had been haunted by the castle corridors was a movingly beautiful listener to be told by a little boy. He also took care of safety and held out his hand in support of the slippery stairs.
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The guidance in nature by Daniel, who has since qualified as a Wilderness and Nature Guide, have also been beautiful experiences. Now I am waiting for an excursion where I can learn more skills to survive in nature – under good guidance.
New ideas – together with others
The next work as a guide is the Urban & Nature learning excursion, ordered for guide students in Helsinki. I am grateful for these opportunities!
I’ve also been designing new tourist services together with other actors in my home town Hyvinkää. One of them is a new way to experience Museum areas: ”Museum Goes Outdoors” guided tour is planned for the Finnish Railway Museum. This experience combines drama and guidance where the audience can participate and the plot of the story goes from the past to the future.
In the guidance services, I move more towards nature and simple experiences in nature. Nature itself is the best attraction; silence, peace and sensitization are the best experiences to offer.
In the coming years, I want to offer for more and more guests the opportunity to walk the path of silence and plant a Tree of Love to a loved one or destination of their choice. This is a way to do good and act for better future.
While making plans, the story of the artist Helene Schjerfbeck, who lived in Hyvinkää, have come to my mind several times. I have been thinking of the moment when her heart broke and she was treated in the Hyvinkää sanatorium. Would you join a nature walk in name of ”Broken Hearts´ healing excursion” in which the story of Helene is told and the participants could share their own love stories – the happy ones or the ones of broken hearts. At the end of the trip, everyone could plant a Tree of Love as a beautiful memory of love.
Thank you for following my blog.
For more information: Mood of Finland & Love Forest Finland
Please, don´t hesitate in contacting me!
Anu
anu.nylund@moodoffinland.fi
Anu Nylund - A future-oriented innovator in Regenerative Tourism in Finland 