Father Christmas family holiday, Norway

Community
Tourism has become the main source of employment and income in and around Savalen, replacing traditional industries such as farming and forestry. Working within this vital growth industry in rural and remote areas means that we must take a great deal of responsibility; socially, environmentally and economically.

We fully appreciate the impact of tourist visits on local communities and their residents and strive to ensure that we are having a positive effect. We always encourage all of our clients to respect and embrace the lives and culture of local and to respect their traditions. We always encourage cultural exchange by urging clients to learn a few important words in Norwegian such as: hello, goodbye, please, thank you etc.

At Savalen, as with all of our other destinations, we ensure that we use local suppliers where possible, enabling locally owned businesses and the economies in which they work to benefit directly. This reduces the leakage of financial benefits meaning that the tourism income, generated by our presence, stays where it should, in the local economy. We firmly believe in paying a fair price for all the services provided by our suppliers regardless of where they are in the world and this is extremely important when dealing with small rural communities. Through the tourism multiplier effect, this all helps to generate incomes and employment where the drift might otherwise be towards larger employment areas such as towns and cities

Savalen also sources ingredients for its restaurants locally. This includes local products the majority of the meat which is produced organically and locally (reindeer, elk, lamb), potatoes are local, as well as some of the dairy produce. But as this area is in the Norwegian Highland evidently not all can be grown in the region!

Environment
The whole resort including the aqua wellbeing centre and SPA is heated with green energy either hydro electric power or bio power (wood pellets/ wood shavings) thus ensuring minimal pollution of the environment. They have also installed heating control systems throughout the resort which reduces the use of energy to a minimum whilst still keeping guests nice and warm.

The resort was mainly built using sustainable timbers. The units are well insulated to ensure maximum efficiency. The resort has installed LED lights as outdoor lighting. This has a double effect, firstly it gives a 70 – 80 % reduction of used energy and secondly it allows you to enjoy the starry night sky because you can direct the light down in a very good manner. The resort is also now in the first stages of keeping account of our own environmental emissions.

The majority of the activities at Savalen are nature based. Naturally we wish to maintain the natural settings in which we work, not just for the future of our company, but also for future generations. We always make sure that these activities have a minimal negative effect on the surroundings. The trails we use are trails used by the locals for hundreds of years either for farming, hunting or exercise. Our alpine area is used during summer as a grazing area for sheep. During winter the skiing trails are well managed and the snowmobiles we use are as fuel efficient as possible.

Our holidays rely on visiting a beautiful and unspoilt area where you can recharge your batteries. We do appreciate that some may feel that snowmobiles should not be included in such itineraries. However in areas such as Savalen they are a way of life, and are a necessary way of transport for the farmers during winter as the road infrastructure is not extensive. The alternatives to snowmobiles would in most cases be large, gas-guzzling off road vehicles. All snowmobiles are regularly serviced and kept as fuel efficient as possible. The snowmobile service industry is also another vital source of employment in these remote areas. We do however strictly limit the tourist use to the winter roads by the lake.