Abstracts for Session 25

Coping with the Arctification of Northern Tourism before, during and after Covid-19 pandemic

 

 

Title: Tourism Development in Northern Peripheries: A Labor Market Perspective

Authors: Dieter Müller

Affiliation: Umeå University

 

Tourism has for a long time been promoted as a tool for regional development in peripheral regions that historically have been characterized by resource exploitation. Even though there has been anecdotal evidence that tourism has indeed succeeded to restructure regional economies, there are no systematic accounts of this development. This article presents empirical evidence and a GIS-based economic-geographical analysis of tourism development in Västerbotten and Norrbotten in northernmost Sweden. This is done for the years 1995 to 2017 and in relation to firms, employment, and salaries within the industry. Furthermore, the article discusses the relative importance of tourism in relation to other industries. In this context, the article highlights the geographical differences within the region and illustrates aspects such as accessibility and clustering as important factors explaining the development of the industry. The result presented in this article are finally discussed in relation to a recovery of the tourism industry in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

 

 

Title: Arctic Tourism in Swedish Lapland during the Covid-19 pandemic

Authors: Johanna Fernholm and Christian Persson 

Affiliation: Stockholm Business School, USN School of Business, University of South-Eastern Norway

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on tourism globally and caused disruptions of travel and tourism. The Arctic region and communities is often considered as ‘vulnerable areas’, due to the communities close relationships with nature. Tourism in the Arctic also strongly impact the sustainable local economies and livelihoods, especially as the number of visitors in the Arctic region often exceed that of the local communities. In this paper we examine how the tourism sector in destination ‘Swedish Lapland’ in Arctic Sweden has handled the current impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic? and furthermore, if there are local adaptation strategies? The study uses an interpretive approach, and data has been collected through observations and interviews on site in five municipalities in Arctic Sweden and in interactions with local key actors in the tourism and hospitality sector such as tourist center, activity companies, reindeer owners, hotels, museums, civil society organizations, and tourists.

The results indicates that the pandemic has had severe negative effects on tourism actors e.g. more or less ‘all bookings disappeared’, and fewer foreign tourists have been able to travel to the destination due to restrictions. There are also reports on how the pandemic have been handled in relation to e.g. governmental adjustment support, closure of certain activities and reduction of others, shorter opening hours, and short-term layoffs of employees. However, in contradiction, for some tourism actors, the pandemic has meant that the support from local customers and domestic tourists has created new business opportunities and expansion.

 

 

Title: At the Intersection of Climate Change and the Pandemic: (Over)tourism in Arctic Sweden 

Authors: O. Cenk Demiroglu, Dorothee Bohn, Dieter K. Müller, Linda Lundmark, Andreas Back, and Robert O. Nilsson

Affiliation: Umeå University

 

Recently boosted by the climate change publicity and the regionalization trends, tourism in Arctic Sweden, namely the northernmost counties of Västerbotten and Norrbotten, has seen a substantial growth in visits, revenues and jobs. This rapid development has manifested itself in terms of environmental, social, as well as economic sustainability issues – when certain leakages are accounted for. While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may have been expected to bring a halt to such dynamism, recent reports and observations indicate a growing domestic and local interest to, along with congestion at, Arctic Sweden’s relatively “Corona-safe” outdoor recreation and tourism offerings, especially when combined with ideal or pushing weather conditions in change. Such transformation also comes together with popularizing forms of accommodation such as second homes and caravans. This study outlines the latest tourism and recreation developments in Arctic Sweden under the impacts of the pandemic and climate change, through a mixed method approach that combines qualitative and spatial data. For this purpose, initial interviews are conducted with the supply side representatives during a fieldtrip in August 2021. The preliminary results are then synthesized with the spatial analyses of the movement patterns on the demand side, disclosed by employing geographical information systems and mobile-device tracking data.   

 

Keywords: Climate Change, Pandemic, COVID-19, Overtourism, Arctification, Arctic Sweden 

 

 

Title: The Arctification of Northern Tourism: A Longitudinal Geographical Analysis of Firm Names in Sweden

Authors: Robert O. Nilsson, Roger Marjavaara, and Dieter K. Müller

Affiliation: Umeå University, Sweden

 

The European North above the Arctic Circle has long attracted travelers, the selling point often being the availability of nature and wilderness. Recent developments, however, suggest a greater variety of tourism motivations, including mass tourism. New products such as dogsled tours, aurora borealis watching, snowshoe walks etc. have been introduced into the regional tourism supply. Many of these firms use names containing the term “Arctic” or similar terminology related to imaginations of the Far North. The chosen terminology is considered one example of the process of “Arctification”, here referring to the use of Arctic terminology to reimage the touristic properties of the region. However, there is a limitation in descriptive knowledge about the overall Arctification of the region’s tourism industry. Hence, this article aims to illustrate the Arctification of the tourism industry by mapping the changing geographies of firm names. Through its results, the study aims to contribute an understanding of the imagination of the production of space in the region through firm naming, and the role of tourism development in reimaging regions. The study uses a descriptive quantitative approach, extracting data from the Retriever Business database, a collection of public financial and business-related information regarding all types of firm and associations registered in Sweden. The results show a clear development of tourism firms increasingly using Arctic terminology in their firm names. Also, the tourism firms’ locations show patterns of spatial differences and clusters related to the region’s natural environment, population density, infrastructure, and the age of these firms.

 

 

Title: Spatial strategies, imaginations, and contradictions of seasonality and Arctification in northern Finland – endogenous and exogenous tourism management strategy perspectives from Ylläs ski-resort, Finnish Lapland 

Authors: Aapo Lunden, Alix Varnajot, Outi Kulusjärvi, and Mari Partanen

Affiliation: Oulu University, Lapland University

 

This presentation explores the relationship between the Arctification phenomenon and the continuing debate concerning tourism seasonality and the means to overcome it. The presentation focuses on the spatial practices, tourism development strategies, and future envisions related to seasonality and Arctification at the level of Ylläs ski-resort entrepreneurs. The presentation draws from a research project analysing tourism development in northern Finland at the Ylläs ski-resort, experiencing strong pre-covid tourism growth and growing domestic demand during the Covid-era.

Our theoretical framework draws from Nogués-Pedregal’s bifold conceptualization of dominant tourism management strategies as endogenous valuation (towards the inside) of tourism as a livelihood and exogenous valorisation (towards the outside) of production of touristic resources. By analysing entrepreneurs’ opinions on tourism development and seasonality related challenges as examples of endogenous and exogenous tourism management strategies, the presentation explores the notion of Arctification and the idea of “de-Arctification”; representing somehow conflicting but dependent idea on how to react to tourism growth and the expansion of (global) Arctic imaginaries in tourism.  

The presentation will showcase results from the research collaboration, provide examples from the Ylläs case study and the broader context of Finnish Lapland (e.g., Republic of Santa Claus). Moreover, the aim is to expand the discussion to Arctification “in action” and its potential impacts on tourism, sustainability, and how to imagine coping strategies of more Arctified future of tourism in northern latitudes. 

 

 

Title: The future of Arctification in a post-Arctic tourism context 

Authors: Alix Varnajot

Affiliation: University of Lapland 

 

In August 2019, about 100 Icelanders gathered to hold a funeral for the death of Okjokull, which was the first of Iceland’s glaciers to disappear because of climate change. This ceremony epitomized a set of narratives commonly associated with the Anthropocene, where the impacts of climate change constitute an inevitable climate apocalypse. Such perspectives are at the origin of what is called ‘last-chance tourism’, referring to markets focusing on experiencing species on the edge of extinction like polar bears, or on landscapes and seascapes about to disappear such as Arctic’s glaciers and sea ice. In parallel, the process of Arctification has been both reinforcing the images of the Arctic perceived as snowy and cold, with white landscapes – the very core elements that are threatened by climate change – and overlooking the variety of climates, landscapes and cultures that constitute the Arctic region. This, somehow, results in an antagonist situation in tourism, where the Arctification process plays against the shrinking cryosphere induced by climate change impacts.

This raises interesting questions to what will happen to Arctification when the cryosphere and the ‘whiteness’ of the Arctic will be gone, or at least when they will become too unreliable for Arctic tourism products and experiences. The paper introduces post-Arctic tourism, a concept grounded in Anthropocene narratives and emerging post-apocalyptic studies, and then explores the future of Arctification – on a long-term perspective – when the chances to spot polar bears in Svalbard or to spend a snowy Christmas in Rovaniemi will be gone.