Tourism and Communities Nordic Perspectives

SECTION 1. Introduction 

1. Tourism and communities: relations, impacts, and sustainability needs

Jarkko Saarinen

SECTION 2. Island communities

2. Local community ‘schizophrenia’: negotiating sustainable tourism development in a Nordic Islandic destination 

Karina Eline Knutzen and Frank Lindberg

3. Cases on Icelandic island communities and tourism: Grímsey and Hrísey

Laufey Haraldsdóttir and Ása Marta Sveinsdóttir

SECTION 3. Urban communities

4. Urban destination foodscapes: developing culinary tourism through clusters and localhood in Copenhagen

Josefine Östrup Backe and Jan Henrik Nilsson

5. Community, heritage and tourism development: views from the town of Visby, Sweden, by the local academia

Narcís Bassols i Gardella

6. Cultural revitalization in Helsinki: the blurring line between locals and tourists

Salla Jokela and Paola Minoia

SECTION 4. Communities as planners and entrepreneurs

7. Tinkering toward self-determination in Nordic cruise communities: a case study of local tourism firms in Northern Norway

Karin Wigger, Hindertje Hoarau-Heemstra and Albina Pashkevich

8. Entering the edges in Iceland: tourism routes through rural areas

Þórný Barðadóttir and Eyrún Jenný Bjarnadóttir

9. Policies, laws and practices favouring community empowerment in protected areas: the case study of the Danish National Park Mols Bjerge

Maria Louise Jensen and Narcís Bassols i Gardella

10. Community inclusion in tourism development: community-based entrepreneurship and agency in Finnish Arctic destinations

Outi Kulusjärvi and Jarkko Saarinen

SECTION 5. Conclusions

11. Conclusions and prospects for tourism and community studies in the Nordic region

Narcís Bassols i Gardella

Biography

Narcís Bassols i Gardella is a Lecturer in Sustainable Destination Development at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland, Sweden. He researches cultural and urban tourism, communitarian aspects of tourism, destination development, and sustainability in hospitality. He has recently written about tourism entrepreneurship and emerging destinations via several tourism cases published by CABI. Other recent publications include his papers about the frameworks and ideas on historic centres in Latin America (Journal of Heritage Tourism), about racial segregation in heritage cities (Historia, University of Santiago), about the shifts and evolutions of guided tours in the post-pandemic context (International Journal of Tourism Cities), and about the possibilities of adaptive reuse of heritage buildings (Journal of Urban Culture Research).

Ulrika Persson-Fischier is a lecturer at Uppsala university, Sweden. She holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Oslo. Her research includes sustainability, co-creative methodologies, entrepreneurship, and tourism education, with a focus on cruise tourism, community empowerment, and Nordic settings like Iceland and Gotland in the Baltic, but also other islands like Rapa Nui in the Pacific. Recent publications include articles on open-space methodology for community tourism development (Scandinavian Journal of Tourism and Hospitality), responsible cruise tourism in Iceland, cruise tourism in the Pacific, and the role of authenticity for sustainable tourism development.

Jarkko Saarinen is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland. He also serves as Distinguished Professor (Sustainability Management) at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include regional and local development, sustainability in tourism, tourism and climate change, resilience studies, tourism-community relations, and nature conservation studies. His recent publications include co-authored and co-edited books: Handbook on Tourism Governance (2025, Elgar), Climate Change and Tourism in Southern Africa (2022, Routledge), Southern African Perspectives in Sustainable Tourism Management (2022, Springer), Tourism, Change and the Global South (2021, Routledge), and Resilient Destinations (2019, Routledge).

“Communities are the foundation of tourism planning and development. In recent years the Nordic countries have increasingly been the focus of wider interest in community wellbeing and welfare. This welcome book therefore brings together international interest in the Nordic region with a series of chapters that convey some of the different dimensions of community in a Nordic tourism context. The book will therefore be of substantial interest to many students of tourism but especially those looking at the island and urban aspects the community and tourism relationship.”

-C. Michael Hall, Massey University, New Zealand

 

“This volume dives into the promises and pitfalls of tourism across rural landscapes and vibrant cities, revealing how strong community ties drive success—and what happens when they falter. From sustainability debates on Lofoten Islands, Norway, to Copenhagen’s foodscapes and Arctic entrepreneurship, these chapters offer fresh insights and a realistic lens on building thriving destinations.”

-Linda Lundmark, Umeå University, Sweden

 

“Within the past decade, ‘social license to operate’ has become a must-win battle towards more sustainable tourism development across the globe. Grounded in Nordic experience and trajectories, the present volume provides instructive examples and novel directions to rethink and nurture tourism-community relations to achieve this goal. An important contribution to research on democratic and community-centred destination development in the Nordics.”

-Carina Ren, Aalborg University, Denmark