The Challenge of Overtourism in Finnish Lapland

The aim of this thesis research was to find out the current situation and the perspective of DMOs in Finnish Lapland about the challenges concerning the influx of tourists coming to Lapland in recent years. The research purpose was created and developed for an ongoing project called Arctic Smart Growth. The study consists of a theory section and an empirical section that deals with the current situation in Finish Lapland. The theory section discusses the development of tourism in Lapland, the overtourism concept in general and other theme-related issues, as well as the structure of Destination Management Organizations. In order to achieve the goal and receive a tourism expert’s perspective, the qualitative method was chosen as the most suitable one. In this thesis semi- structured interviews are the primary source of information, which brought more in-depth knowledge of the theme-related issues. Four representants of local destination management organizations and a Regional Council of Lapland have been interviewed during the winter season 2018/2019. All the discussions were conducted online via Skype and Google meeting. As a result, the research findings indicted that at the moment there is no overtourism happening in Finnish Lapland, even though the preliminary analysis showed that the number of tourists is only growing with each year. However, other problems have been discovered. The answers of the respondents specified that there is a big challenge with sharing accommodation platforms, like Airbnb. Furthermore, the problem of seasonality dispersion (crowded winters, low number of tourists during other seasons) proposes that year-round tourism is the main aim for tourism development in Lapland