This week, the Arctic Congress kicked off in Bodø, Northern Norway.
At two sessions targeting Arctic tourism, several researchers discussed how social media shapes tourists’ expectations of Arctic destinations.
Researcher Ria-Maria Adams presented her research on Finnish Lapland and Rovaniemi, in particular. She argued that some Arctic tourism destinations develop to match the imagined idea of their visitors and that this can lead to a ‘Disneyfication’ of Arctic destinations, often at the cost of local people and places’ needs.
Home of Santa Claus
Adams uses Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland as an example of such development:
“Finnish Lapland has been featured as an exotic and mystical fantasy land.”
“It has transformed in the past 40 years to match the imaginary of the Christmas destination.”
Rovaniemi has emerged as Santa’s homeland after a photo from 1984, showing the first Concorde flight landing in Rovaniemi on December 25th.
“The Finnish Tourism Board established a Santa Claus working group in 1984 with the goal of promoting the idea of Lapland being the true home of Santa Claus.”
The Disneyfication of the Arctic
In 2022, the Executive Director of the Arctic Economic Council, Mads Qvist Frederiksen, said that such a Disneyfication was one of the main challenges to sustainable development of the Arctic:
“Over the years, we have seen a “Disneyfication” of the Arctic, like it is a region with just polar bears and people living in igloos like a scene from Frozen. Such an approach hinders the true potential of Arctic development and limits the interest of international investors. The Arctic is not a small glass snowball. It is a region where people live, study, and work.”
On a similar note, researcher Adams says that these developments in tourism could be harmful to the local population and the indigenous peoples.
She referred to problematic Sami representations in an attempt to satisfy tourists who seek “authentic” Arctic experiences. These representations, however, are not authentic, but rather activities and destinations developed to match the tourists’ idea of the destination.
