Hello, my name is Edward Huijbens and I'm
a professor of tourism and geography at University of Akureyri in Iceland.
In this session I will speak about tourism in the Arctic,
both as part of the current Arctic economy and as the future resource of the area.
This module will focus on five points.
First, I will outline
some basic facts and figures about tourism development in the Arctic.
Second, I will talk about the factors determining the development of tourism.
Third, I will address who are
the potential winners and losers of tourism development in the Arctic.
Fourth, I would like to move the discussion on to
tourism resources framed at the idea of Arctic allures.
That I would like to tie with the research of
the International Polar Tourism Research Network (IPTRN) and lastly,
I want to address some of the challenges to sustainability of tourism in the Arctic.
When it comes to facts and figures
reliable and regionally compatible statistics on tourism development across the Arctic,
are hard to come by and even more difficult to compile.
In an article from 2011 in the Journal Polar Geography,
Ginny Fay and Anna Karlsdottir started give an overview of Arctic tourism indicators.
Therein the administrative regions of the Arctic can be
seen from Alaska via Canada and Greenland,
through Iceland, Norway, Lapland and Russia.
As it is also clear from their overview,
in order to understand tourism development,
you need a handle on inbound tourism.
That is how many visitors?
That is non-locals visit a region,
country or a place.
How to count them is challenging,
especially when there are multiple entry points and multiple means of entering.
Moreover, not all visitors are tourists.
A proxy to this inbound tourism can be a computation statistics.
That is; how many nights a person of
non-local origin spends at some particular accommodation provider.
That requires the accommodation providers to report on
this and that really depends on several factors.
Such as, the size and capacity of
the accommodation provider and the perceived severity of taxing in the region.
All the benefits of tourism accrue through those
visiting and the activities they undertake and the services they use.
My colleague Pat maher on a recent publication on tourism futures in the Arctic,
gives an idea of inbound tourism in the Arctic for the year 2015.
As can be seen from his table,
around 10 million people visited regions of the Arctic in 2015.
To compare and give you some idea,
that shear 25 million people went cruising
worldwide and over one billion people undertook cross-border travel.
Surveys of these visitors do not exist in
any compatible fashion nor a detailed breakdown of the origin for the Arctic.
Although it is safe to say that,
these are mostly people of
European and North American origin like most tourists worldwide.
Through the democratization of travel,
transport technology development and increasing accessibility,
some parts of the Arctic are witnessing
increasing inbound tourism like the figure from Iceland shows.
So as can be seen, the Arctic with its four million inhabitants has tourism.
But it is regionally differentiated and its growth is sporadic.
In some places it is growing very rapidly like in Iceland,
whilst in other places,
it isn't decline or stable.
Mere figures only tally inbound tourism and those staying on land.
That is another form of visitation to the Arctic.
One is that its growing in popularity and visibility
in public debate and that is cruising.
Cruise ships of growing sizes are penetrating ever deeper into the Arctic.
In 2016 with much fanfare,
history was made when the ship Crystal Serenity
passed through the Northwest passage with more than 1000 people on board.
The trip lasted 32 days and was repeated again in summer 2017.
Now, with much less fanfare,
Crystal Cruise has cancelled the route.
Quoted in the High note news, last December Johnstone,
Crystal Cruise Vice President of land programs said. And I quote."
In the future we are looking to offer guests
a more intimate experience in the arctic perhaps through our new expeditionship.
The world's first purpose-built polar code-compliant yacht
but nothing has been confirmed at this time."
Indeed in March, 2016 at
the annual 68th cruise global convention in Fort Lauderdale Florida,
the Crystal Cruise introduced
the first ever expedition mega yacht to sail with a polar class six designation.
In August, 2018, you might very well meet this 183 m long Cruise's vessel in the Ice,
North of Svalbard, eastern Greenland or in other places in the Arctic.
Wrapped up in the image of the cruise ship,
is one of the key factors determining the development of tourism anywhere.
and this is axis.
It is said that for tourism to develop,
you need three A's;
Accommodation, Attraction and Access.
Now, Cruise ships indeed get you there and thereby provide access.
They are themselves the accommodation provider.
The latter of course missing in many parts of the Arctic and
many cruise ship it is an attraction in itself and its on board amenities.
Regardless of the Cruise ship however,
providing access to some people,
aviation remains the key means to provide access to most parts of the Arctic.
In this image, I show the route network of Iceland here in yellow and how it links to
the route network of air Iceland connect in
blue which is building a network in Greenland and the North Atlantic.
Through interlinked aviation networks like these,
places like Ilulissat in Greenland,
are all of a sudden within the reach of people living in Tampa,
Florida or in Barcelona, Spain.
Now, if access is provided,
who is to gain from tourism?
Who are the winners so to speak?
My colleague Peter Miller provides an overview of
the challenges if one is to use tourism as a tool for regional development in the Arctic.
The Arctic is generally peripheral and geographically remote from source market.
It depends on imports from many of its supplies to cater to visitors and
information and innovation does not flow easily
through the sporadic communication networks of the Arctic.
Being remote and after under the auspices of
some central government capital city wafer the South,
many arctic communities lack political and economic control over decision making.
As an example providing access requires
infrastructure investment in airports or in Harper facilities.
The communities in the Arctic themselves cannot finance
such huge investment and state intervention becomes the norm.