Resilience building in Arctic tourism: Destinations as tourism-dependent communities of practice

In the past decade, resilience thinking has been increasingly discussed in tourism studies and policy making. This has been based on the increasing impacts of global climate and environmental change on tourism, especially in vulnerable environments such as the Arctic. Furthermore, increasing frustration concerning the idea and practice of sustainable tourism in destination governance and change management has activated a search for alternative frameworks including that of resilience building as a fresh option. This chapter focuses on resilience building as a practice and condition for a destination-scale sustainability in tourism development. Resilience building calls for collaboration, shared views and meanings in terms of what direction and how a destination should be developed and governed in a situation characterized by increasing and unpredictable environmental change. The chosen case studies are Arctic communities, which are highly tourism dependent. Specifically, the chapter focuses on resilience-building and adaptation responses in tourism-dependent communities in the context of the changing operational environment in Finnish Lapland.