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A major attraction in Arctic tourism is the presence of indigenous cultures. However, many tourists have only limited opportunities to access indigenous culture and sites, as long as they are not spatially and temporally fixed. This puts museums at the center of attention and gives them a core role in portraying and interpreting indigenous heritage. A dual role with the responsibility to collect, preserve, use, and develop heritage while at the same time appealing to various visitor groups is challenging, not least in a time of Arctification, luring new visitor groups with various touristic imaginaries to the North. This article reports on an assessment of two indigenous museums in Arctic Sweden. The research reveals that the responsible managers at the museums are aware of the dual role of museums, and need to navigate in a complex environment of local and global expectations based on preconceived notions. The museums are important nodes, and contribute to place-making in peripheral localities in the North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of second‐home tourism on property markets has been one of the key debates in second‐home research. This has been discussed in association with property speculation, financial vulnerability, gentrification, displacement, and rural development. This paper studies the market prices for all detached homes traded on the open market in Sweden during 1999–2017. It investigates how the market values of second homes have developed over time and how they vary spatially. Results show clear and growing spatial inequalities over the period. It emphasises the dynamic interplay between different forms of dwelling use and the close relationship to spatial context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European North 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 new products such as dogsled tours, aurora borealis watching, snowmobiling, and stays at ice hotels. 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'. 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 how firm naming is part of the tourism production, and how this influences the reimaging and delineation of regions. The study uses a descriptive quantitative approach, extracting data from the Retriever Business database. 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 related to the region's natural environment, population density, infrastructure, and the firms' age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Second homes have increasingly gained academic attention, not least within tourism research. Nevertheless, most studies have addressed the topic from the perspective of the second home owners, highlighting issues such as motivation for second home ownership, use patterns, geographical location, and meanings of second homes. Even the impacts of second homes have mainly been addressed as the accumulated outcome of their owners' decisions. Hence, second homes have mainly been conceptualized as personal/family projects. Relatively little research has been done on the ways local communities cope with second home tourism. This is the departure point for this paper, with the purpose of analysing coping strategies among public and private stakeholders regarding second home tourism. It is argued that communities have various ways of coping, ranging from resistance to resource utilization. The proposed conceptual framework is empirically applied to the case of the Swedish West Coast. In an interview survey of public and private service providers, different strategies are identified. The results of the survey indicate that second home owners are increasingly seized on as a resource that can be utilized for business development. Ultimately, institutional preconditions imply that second homes remain a challenge for local municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In northern Sweden, the positive effects of tourism involvement by Sámi Indigenous people are mostly shown in terms of employment, yet at times have been shown to go beyond economic ones and include other equally important benefits. Only when all components are seen at the same time can we get a true understanding of tourism as a livelihood strategy. This paper uses a sustainable rural livelihoods approach to investigate the different roles and meanings of tourism among Sámi tourist entrepreneurs in northern Sweden. It does so using data from 13 semi-structured interviews with Sámi Indigenous tourist entrepreneurs. The results indicate that there are many goals and objectives tourism jobs serve among Sámi Indigenous people in the Swedish north. For example, the tourism business is at times seen as a more sustainable way of using reindeer. Tourism was also a way for Sámi to express themselves and keep certain traditions alive. Another leading conclusion relates to tourist entrepreneurs as cultural ambassadors for Sámi issues. By presenting factual information about Sámi people, challenging stereotypes and by making others aware of the many hardships reindeer herders face, Sámi tourist entrepreneurs attribute to their work meanings that are social, cultural and even political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nexus of workforce and destination development is a largely uncharted area within tourism research. The local human capital has above all been in focus when underlining tourism's potential to create employment even for the inexperienced and less educated. However, a discordant strand of theory holds the low levels of qualified knowledge within the industry responsible for absent destination development in areas struggling to develop competitive advantages. Additionally, the in-migration of a skilled workforce may be hampered by a lack of amenities attracting permanent residents. In order to explore whether the tourism sector is characterized by a less educated share of the workforce, a study was performed using micro-level data on the full working population of Sweden during the years 2000–2010. The workforce in tourism was compared to the total and two other low-skill sectors, and the results show that the educational aspects within tourism are more related to geography than economic sectors. Contrary to general presumptions, the workforce within the tourism sector has a higher level of formal education than the other selected sectors in regions with generally low educational levels. The implication is thus that strategies aimed at creating employment for the least educated in rural areas need to be reconsidered, and not unconditionally target the tourism sector. Above all, tourism development needs to be based on assessments of local preconditions rather than a generalized image. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tourism is often identified as able to provide opportunities for indigenous populations. In northern Sweden, correspondingly tourism has been proposed to create employment opportunities and help preserve Sámi indigenous culture. Although there are numerous studies on the topic, they are lacking in a time dimension and comprehensiveness. Often they are based on limited case studies and narratives of those members of the indigenous population who have engaged in new activities successfully. Therefore, this work aims to investigate on a national scale how widespread are tourism occupations among reindeer herders and what are some of the characteristics of those engaged in them. This paper uses detailed census and population register data containing personal and professional information on reindeer herders in Sweden and their families spanning 50 years. The findings suggest that involvement in tourism is more common among reindeer herders than farmers. Moreover, involvement in tourism is highly gendered with women being more likely to be engaged in it. Findings also show that the type of tourism professions people are engaged in is more a result of the available geographical resource than an inherent inclination among reindeer herders to work with specific fields such as nature-based attractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]