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Cryotourism is a distinct form of tourism which is based on ice and snow cover and is thus highly determined by climatic conditions. While a considerable body of literature addresses the tourism-climate change nexus in (sub-)Arctic and European Alpine regions, little is known about the situation in South American high mountain and sub-Antarctic areas. Against this background, this perspective article presents a research agenda for cryotourism-climate change nexus from a South–North perspective. The initial step toward this objective was an 18-days research visit in Chile and Argentina during January and February 2024. Drawing upon our field notes, current literature and the latest developments in ice and snow-based tourism, we propose three key dimensions for a research agenda, namely: (a) tourism mobilities and southward spatial substitution, (b) socio-ecological implications of cryotourism for local communities, and (c) governance challenges for tourism stakeholders and policymakers. We contend that interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to tourism and climate change research are key aspects to account for the global nature of tourism mobility flows, and the interlinks between local and global processes and impacts of climatic environmental transformations.

This chapter unravels the nature–society dichotomy in the context of nature-based tourism. Drawing upon Neil Smith's production of nature thesis, the chapter examines how Arctic-themed resort enclaves in northernmost Sweden, Finland and Norway, as well as Iceland, produce wilderness for international markets. Even though the studied venues evoke imaginaries of pristine wilderness to attract travellers, these touristic environments are a product of globally circulating ideas of Arctic nature coupled with tourism businesses' need to create exchange value. As such, the key characteristic of this wilderness is that locally specific flora and fauna are overlooked in favour of distant landscape sceneries and the skies above. Unlike all other human sensations involving wilderness, the view is the easiest to commodify and is incorporated by the Arctic-themed enclaves into a highly standardised, safe and comfortable accommodation environment. Thus, wilderness is largely confined to an indoor experience in which the visual sensations dominate.

This paper examines the rapid proliferation of Arctic-themed enclave resorts in northernmost Sweden and Finland. Drawing upon the concept of opportunity spaces, this qualitative inquiry traces how tourism development pathways unfold at the intersection of institutional environments' strategic selectivity and entrepreneurial agency. Results indicate that a new generation of highly industry-experienced entrepreneurs has seized the opportunities provided by a combination of strong international demand for exclusive Arctic tourism and low interest rates, as well as comprehensive state-backed financial assistance for business development. The enclave resort is advantageous for tourism in remote locations as it overcomes the economic challenges of distance decay and agglomeration deficiencies through a low-volume/high-yield business strategy.

This paper advances the study of metagovernance by examining its spatial horizons in the empirical case of tourism development. Drawing upon Jessop et al.’s (2008) TPSNE framework on territory, place, scale, network and environment for a longitudinal qualitative analysis, the article traces the evolution of tourism metagovernance in northernmost Finland and Sweden over the past 150 years. The shifts from pre-Fordism over welfare state Fordism to the competition state manifest themselves in tourism metagovernance through distinct socio-spatial relationships between the state, tourism stakeholders and society at large. Applying the TPSNE framework provides crucial explanatory insights into processes and drivers of change and continuity in tourism’s sectoral development as part of wider societal and political transformations.

The polar regions are increasingly at the center of attention as the hot spots of climate crisis as well as tourism development. The recent IPCC reports highlight several climate change risks for the rather carbon-intensive and weather-based/dependent polar tourism industry in the Arctic and the Antarctic. This study presents the scholarly state-of-knowledge on tourism and climate change in the polar regions with a literature survey extending beyond the Anglophone publications. As a supporting tool, we provide a live web GIS application based on the geographical coverages of the publications and filterable by various spatial, thematic and bibliographical attributes. The final list of 137 publications indicates that, regionally, the Arctic has been covered more than the Antarctic, whilst an uneven distribution within the Arctic also exists. In terms of the climate change risks themes, climate risk research, i.e. impact and adaptation studies, strongly outnumbers the carbon risk studies especially in the Arctic context, and, despite a balance between the two main risk themes, climate risk research in the Antarctic proves itself outdated. Accordingly, the review ends with a research agenda based on these spatial and thematic gaps and their detailed breakdowns.

Tourism has long been promoted as a catalyst for socio-economic development in sparsely populated areas based on the commodification of culture and natural environments. This thesis examines the case of Arctic tourism in the two neighbouring northern counties of Finnish Lapland and Norrbotten (Sweden). Although characterised by similar resource endowments for tourism, these two regions have historically pursued divergent pathways, leading to different industry characteristics and spatial development outcomes. More recently, Lapland and Norrbotten have witnessed a remarkable increase in Arctic-themed tourism featuring soft nature-based winter activities and resort accommodation for export markets.

To better understand the complex factors facilitating the emergence and consolidation of this pathway, a theoretical framework combining perspectives drawn from evolutionary economic geography, geographical political economy, and the strategic relational approach to structure and agency was selected. Through this theoretical lens, the thesis studies how wider politico-economic trajectories, institutional priorities and strategic selectivity, and entrepreneurial agency are intertwined in tourism path creation that takes place in path-dependent regional opportunity spaces. Empirically, the thesis rests upon a case study methodology that integrates expert interviews, document analysis, and spatial mapping of regional development funding for tourism projects and firms.

The findings show that the geographical reimagination of Lapland and Norrbotten as Arctic tourism regions is part of wider socio-economic transformations. Export-oriented Arctic tourism is linked to a global political economy promoting economic growth and entrepreneurship, governed by multiscalar public-private networks, as the foundation of sustainable development and social wellbeing. For local places, the alignment with the Arctic represents an upscaling strategy to gain visibility and competitiveness within globalised politico-economic environments. At the regional level, public organisations mediate Arctic tourism pathways inter alia by granting funding and financing for firms and public-private development projects. The institutional strategic selectivity entailed therein privileges commonly established actors and business ideas over new ones, fostering pathway reproduction and the (unintended) continuation of uneven development structures. These opportunity spaces also conditioned the rise of Arctic-themed resort enclave as a distinct tourism product in Lapland and Norrbotten. Although these venues offer potential for new tourism development in previously underdeveloped locations as well as local business cooperation and spinoffs, there remain challenges, not least in relation to their limitations regarding year-round employment and a homogenous market focus implying a boom-and-bust vulnerability.

To summarise, the findings of the four papers included in the thesis provide a nuanced picture of the processes that have shaped Arctic tourism in the two case study regions, raising attention to the limits and opportunities of export-oriented tourism for regional development and local communities in sparsely populated areas.

This chapter brings together invited contributions from new and emerging academics with respect to their experiences and how publishing demands affect their careers and life, and vice versa. The provision of such experiences is important as it conveys the reality of publishing from a real-world context with respect to the pressures we face, especially when starting on the academic ladder. Authors were given a broad scope with respect to their contributions and the results are provided with only very minor editing. They have also been presented anonymously, or rather collectively, because although there are clearly different perspectives, emphasises, and interpretations, there are also commonalities in the contributors’ experiences. Nevertheless, as the reader will see, there are a number of common themes that emerge. Following the perspectives of the different contributions the chapter will discuss some of the main issues that emerge and their implications, including some of the darker aspects of the pressures of publishing.

This paper examines the role of public funding in transforming tourism pathways in sparsely populated Arctic destinations, comparing Northern Sweden and Finnish Lapland. Our theoretical framework considers destination path plasticity and moments of change through the lens of geographical political economy to understand patterns of uneven development. This perspective helps explain how regional development funding driven by multi-scalar political priorities and global markets set structural conditions for tourism. We present a spatial analysis of public funding between 2007 and 2021 for private firms and public projects, complemented by document analysis and expert interviews. We find that public funding in Finnish Lapland has largely reinforced ‘Arctification’ and export-driven tourism in a few locations. In Northern Sweden, it has focused more on redistributing resources to micro-businesses and broader socio-economic development in lagging regions, yet with limited impacts on changing dominant tourism pathways. Public projects improved knowledge creation and networking among public and private actors but were largely unable to consolidate emerging pathways in the long run. Overall, regional development funding supported incremental change around existing pathways and had limited transformative effects in response to shocks or disruptive moments due to the rigid nature of funding programmes.

Research on gateway communities conventionally focuses on micro-level aspects that emerge in the nexus of environmental conservation, tourism development and local livelihoods. However, the embeddedness of places and the local tourism sector in the modes of production, consumption and capital circulation of contemporary capitalism remains oftentimes unaddressed. This chapter, therefore, adopts a political economy perspective and examines the macro-frameworks that condition tourism development in Finnish Lapland, in tandem with attempts to consolidate its gateway position to the Arctic. The aim is to encourage a more nuanced view on gateway status in regions where tourism development is driven by multi-scalar stakeholder interests and embedded into competitive regional development initiatives. While the devastating effects of climate change and human induced pollution on the fragile terrestrial and maritime Arctic ecosystems are well recognized, the spatial reimagination of Lapland in the Arctic represents another neoliberal step towards the total commodification of the environment.