Matkailu ja paikallisuus

Matkailukehityksen, paikallisuuden ja kestävyyden yhteensovittamisen haasteet Suomen Lapissa

Abstract

Recently the role of localities – local communities,
cultures and place-specific traditions – has been
stressed in tourism studies and development discussions
and strategies. The rise of locality has been
based on the changing modes of touristic production
and consumption in Western societies and on an
increasing need for sustainability in tourism development.
This paper aims to provide an overview to the
challenging relationship between tourism development,
local communities, cultures and sustainability.
The focus is set on conventional (mass) tourism
and its local connections in peripheral regions. In
spite of the rhetoric turn addressing the new role of
localities the tourism-centric modes of development
and sustainability tend to situate local communities
and cultures to a staged and marginal position in
tourism supply and demand systems. This tendency
is discussed and demonstrated in the context of
Finnish Lapland by utilising selected touristic representations
of Sami culture as case examples.