Break Sokos Hotel Koli Kylä is a village hotel with 130 rooms, a restaurant, a program service office, a physiotherapist’s reception, its own distillery, and a stylish sauna section. The hotel is located in the center of Koli village, which is the gateway to Koli National Park. The hotel building was designed with sustainability in mind. Northern Karelia Cooperative (PKO) invested over 20 million euros in the construction of the hotel, which created 340 jobs for local contractors.

The hotel employs a total of 50 new PKO employees. The investment is a significant boost to the Koli area. The hotel is a practical example of PKO’s long-term efforts to develop the region’s vitality. The hotel’s construction and renovation projects are based on sustainable construction principles. PKO aims to employ local contractors in building projects to promote the region’s vitality and make North Karelia an even better place to live.

The investment is part of our Lake Pielinen Area tourism strategy, which aims to double the number of tourists staying in the region by 2030. Our vision is that North Karelia will increasingly become an alternative to Lapland, says PKO CEO Juha Kivelä. The hotel is a natural base for active hikers, as versatile hiking trails start almost from the hotel’s yard. The atmosphere of the national park’s trails continues in the hotel, which is decorated with inspiration from Koli’s beautiful seasons and hiking life.

The village hotel brings new offerings alongside the Break Sokos Hotel Koli, which operates on the top of Ukko-Koli. Guiding tourists beyond the peaks of Koli supports the sustainability strategy of Northern Karelia Cooperative, which operates Koli hotels. The village hotel has 10 electric car parking spaces, as many as 150 solar panels, and a district heating center.

The hotel’s decor and restaurant menu make extensive use of products from local entrepreneurs. Intelligent automation is used in the hotel’s air conditioning and underfloor heating so that the basic room temperature is always lower than the operating temperature. When a customer checks out of a room, the bathroom floor heating and room temperature decrease. As a new customer’s check-in approaches, the automation raises the values back to the operating temperature level.

“We hope that the customers of the new hotel will walk to the national park trails from the village as much as possible. The village trail is a three-kilometer-long one-way route that rises from the village center to the Ukko-Koli viewpoint. From Ukko-Koli, you can continue on to all the national park trails,” says Matti Hovi, Head of Recreation at Metsähallitus.

The hiking etiquette is a guide for nature lovers. Respecting nature, moving around, camping, making fires, and litter-free hiking - when you know the rules, you are ready for a hike, says Hovi. “We are developing the activities in the Koli area in good cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment, Metsähallitus, the City of Lieksa, and Kolin Matkailu Oy. From the perspective of responsible tourism, we wanted to build additional accommodation space in Koli village instead of on the top of Ukko-Koli, as this will direct tourist flows to a wider area. Developing tourism in Koli is part of our vision to make North Karelia an even better place to live.”

Please read more about Sustainability at PKO and Sokos Hotels