Globalised imaginaries, Arctification and resistance in Arctic tourism – an Arctification perspective on tourism actors’ views on seasonality and growth in Ylläs tourism destination

ABSTRACT This paper explores the relationship between regional branding, global visions of the Arctic, and tourism seasonality. We analyse tourism development in the Ylläs tourism destination in Finnish Lapland, exemplifying how Arctic branding and place production are fostered and challenged among tourism actors. To analyse tourism actors’ perspectives on growth and development, we employ an Arctification perspective, understood as a form of globalisation and spatiocultural expansion of the Arctic in northern Europe. In more detail, the article examines tourism actors’ views on seasonality and year-round tourism, as these divide opinions and exemplify key development challenges and limits in the Arctic. We provide an analysis of tourism actor interviews from Ylläs, describing attitudes towards seasonality, growth, and the role of Arctic branding and the related regionalisation process in tourism development. The results reveal adaptation and opposing approaches to seeing Ylläs through the global lenses of the Arctic. We further divide these positions into exogenous and endogenous tourism development strategies. The study elaborates on how northern areas are simplistically and export-oriented associated with the Arctic through the social process of Arctification. Finally, the article proposes contextualising seasonality more robustly by paying close attention to socio-ecological sustainability, local contradictions, and alternative opinions in envisioning Arctic tourism development.


Introduction
A distinctive characteristic of the Arctic is its natural seasonal dynamics: daylight, temperature, vegetation, and colours.This variety gives northern Finland touristic opportunities to '[shape] narratives and experiences that rely on the attractiveness of having distinct Arctic seasons'. 1Nevertheless, winter remains the most popular season, with a significant peak around Christmas, 2 with dominating imaginaries, products and experiences involving white, wild, and snowy landscapes.This epitomises what tourism in northern Finland should be about from the global outsider's perspective: tourism products grounded in winter-based representations of the Arctic. 3ourism in Finnish Lapland expanded around the 1960s, with mainly domestic tourists participating in hiking, fishing, and skiing activities. 4Later, along with the increase in private car ownership, Lapland opened to the masses and developed from touring national landscapes to being more activity-based. 5However, it was only in the mid-1980s that tourism in Lapland opened to international markets with the development of Christmas and Santa Claus-related tourism.During this period, the first Concorde charter flights to Rovaniemi from England incentivised hotels and restaurants to open for the first time during Christmas. 6In the case of the Ylläs area, during the same decade, the economic importance of tourism increased further after the closure of a local mine, Hannukainen. 7In more recent tourism development strategies, the focus turned to attracting international investments, brands and high-end customers. 8Thus, contemporary development strategies are rooted in the growing marketisation of Arctic features (e.g.reindeer, huskies, northern lights, igloos), diverging from the domestic leisure customs in Lapland, which have traditionally focused on independent outdoor pursuits with limited operator use.Through an examination of tourism development in Ylläs, this study elucidates broader patterns of Arctic tourism in Finland.Furthermore, it addresses the difficulties faced by winter-oriented destinations, owing to their seasonal nature. 9n recent decades, northern European destinations have been increasingly promoting their 'arcticness' to attract foreign visitors. 10This can be observed by the standardisation of tourism activities and experiences, typically engaging with snow and ice, as well as by naming companies with 'Arctic' and other similar stereotypical words in the tourism sector, well outside the Arctic Circle. 11The Arctic connotation of northern Europe has become a key goal in tourism branding. 12Thus, Arctification as 'a social process creating new geographical images of the North of Europe as part of the Arctic', 13 has become an integral component of contemporary tourism branding and development in the region. 14t the same time, tourism seasonality is seen as one of the main challenges of the tourism industry in northern Europe. 15Seasonality is often described in tourism strategies both as a sub-optimal use of resources and as an issue to overcome in order to achieve more sustainable tourism. 16This paper takes a wider view of seasonality and departs from seasonality's economic rationalisations by interpreting seasonality from broader socioecological sustainability and cultural perspectives.This deviation offers an opportunity to analyse seasonality from the perspective of broader tourism development strategies and the role that regionalisation, regional branding, and Arctification play.However, the relationship between Arctic regional branding, tourism development, and seasonality remains unexplored, particularly regarding local-level sustainability.Therefore, it is critical to investigate these connections, as they have the potential to adversely influence local, smallscale tourism-dependent communities and the natural environment.
The aim of this article is to explore the contradictions arising from tourism development in relation to Arctic regional branding and seasonality challenges and to discuss their potential sustainability effects in tourism destinations.A key focus is on understanding how the 'Arctic' imaginaries are used in tourism and how this potentially creates simplified and fixed views of the region by connecting it to signature events, experiences, and ideas.In more detail, we examine local tourism actors' perspectives on tourism development in the case of the Ylläs destination, with a particular emphasis on the role of seasonality.We then explore how global depictions and Arctic branding are manifested in tourism actors' development visions through ethnographically-oriented interviews.To address these questions, we ask the following: How do global regional imaginaries and growth-oriented ambitions shape tourism development processes in the Arctic context?Furthermore, how might Arctified visions influence the development aspirations of tourism actors in managing and living with tourism seasonality at a ski resort-based destination?

Arctic regional identity in tourism development
The study examines Arctification through two theoretical lenses in human geography: place production and social spatialisation on the one hand, and regionalisation on the other hand.First, according to Varnajot and Saarinen,17 the social phenomenon of Arctification is based on Shields' seminal work on social spatialisation. 18Social spatialisation refers to the active process of creating and recreating place identities through practices (e.g.tourism) and discourses that assign social values and meanings to places.Although Arctification has primarily been studied in the context of tourism, its impact on social spatialisation can also be seen in branding, education, research strategies, and national and regional Arctic policies and documents. 19Indeed, Finland's latest national Arctic Strategy declared the entire country as part of the Arctic. 20As a result, climate change and the Arctic are depicted as providing state-backed short-and mid-term opportunities for the tourism industry due to its relative climatic benefits. 21The aim has been to promote Finland as an Arctic tourism destination by accentuating Arctic branding in nationwide marketing efforts. 22Building on Lefebvre's work, 23 the study considers Arctification as a central driving force for place production. 24econd, regional images are not readymade, but socially constructed through symbolic and material processes that selectively resonate with specific landscapes and places. 25In this sense, regions are not natural or taken-for-granted entities but 'social constructs as well as historically contingent processes and as results of struggles related to governance, economy, culture, political passions, and environmental relations'. 26Thus, regional branding plays a specific role in globalising localities through tourism development, creating regional brands and identities, and differentiation between destinations. 27For example, in tourism branding, the northernmost areas of Finland are often referred to as 'Lapland' or the 'North' rather than 'Arctic'.In contrast, in vernacular Finnish, 'Arctic' is not commonly used when discussing northern Finland.
According to Paasi, 28 regions are social constructions that occur most often in the context of national state territories.For Paasi, regions and regionalisation represent processes of institutionalisation 'in which a territorial unit emerges as part of the spatial structure of the society concerned, becomes established and identified in various spheres of social action and consciousness, and may eventually vanish or deinstitutionalise in regional transformation'. 29Thus, regions and regional images can be understood as subjects of institutionalisation that produce temporal permanence and regionally specific ontologies. 30In other words, regional meanings change over time (e.g., summer tourism used to be the main season before the era of ski resorts in Finnish Lapland) and are relational and temporal (e.g., Nordic countries' tourism is often depicted to benefit temporarily from the Alps region's snow decline).Thus, this paper approaches Arctification as an example of regionalisation and spatial socialisation where tourism is seen as the carrier of new and accentuated meanings and identities of the Arctic region.Therefore, regional identities need to be understood as socially constructed, potentially volatile, reproduced, and at least partially intentional.

The role of regional identities in tourism
The role of tourism in global place production and regionalisation has been examined in various contexts.Thus, regionalisation and regional identities in tourism are founded on global-local dialectics that promote unique destination images for competitiveness in worldwide markets. 31Such regional territorial identity processes encompass concepts like 'Patagoniazation', 'Europeanization', and 'Alpinization'. 32For instance, Alpinization refers to the worldwide dissemination of a distinct type of ski-resort tourism, whereas Europeanization denotes the role of tourism in producing continental identities.In contrast, Patagoniazation connects regional identities with frontier logics and broader debates on natural resource utilisation.Lastly, in northern Europe, the notion of 25 Saarinen, 'Destination in Change'. 26Paasi, 'Regional Geographies', 11. 27 Murphy et al. 'Using brand personality'; Marjavaara et al., 'The Arctification of Northern Tourism'. 28Paasi, 'Deconstructing Regions'. 29Ibid., 234. 30Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality; Jones, 'For a "New New Regional Geography"'; Paasi, 'Regional Geographies'. 31Dredge and Jenkins, 'Destination Place Identity'. 32Mendoza et al., 'The Patagonian Imaginary'; Hollows and Jancovich, 'Dwelling at Peace'; Tissot, 'From Alpine Tourism to the "Alpinization"'.
Arctification has been introduced to encapsulate the emergence of novel, more globally oriented regional identities in tourism. 33espite the natural and cultural diversities of the Arctic, typical activities found in northern Finland are like those in other Arctic destinations such as Longyearbyen (Norway), Sisimiut (Greenland), Tromsø (Norway), Whitehorse (Canada) or Fairbanks (USA). 34Furthermore, northern European tourism areas are experiencing tourism growth via intensifying touristic relativisation and increasing spatial simplification, which we propose, can be understood as a process linked with Arctification.Like regional brands, tourism seasons are increasingly shaped by marketing and global leisure ideals.The Arctic, for example, is connected to 'new' seasons and products aimed at international visitors, including summer and autumn tourism with nightless nights, mountain biking, northern lights, and autumn colours. 35he Arctification process may also have negative implications for the local tourism industries and communities.First, stereotypical images of the North and Arctic may lead to an accentuation of the winter season in tourism and, consequently, disregard the seasonal dynamics of the North and its associated environmental changes. 36At worst, the result of clichéd place promotion is the loss of destination and regional uniqueness by replicating and duplicating successful place branding strategies from elsewhere. 37econdly, Arctification may change labour structures in tourism and, therefore, challenge the extent to which tourism experiences reflect the values and contributions of locals by bringing an increasing number of seasonal workers from abroad. 38Hence, the tourism sector is left vulnerable to 'boom and bust' cycles and economic instability, resulting in sudden decreases in demand and income. 39Finally, the Arctification process raises concerns regarding climate change, particularly its impact on the cryosphere.Indeed, as Saarinen and Varnajot demonstrated, 40 due to the high reliance on snow and ice imaginaries, tourism activities tend to become landscape-based and reliant on winter season characteristics.As a result, the authors argue that tourism operators have become overdependent on visitor-desired climatic elements that they cannot control.This situation becomes critical when Arctic weather does not match the tourists' expected experiences. 41

Seasonality
Tourism seasonality can be characterised as fluctuations in the number of visitors, transportation, employment, admissions to attractions, tourists' consumption and expenditure, accommodation availability, and resource use. 42Hylleberg described seasonality as a systematic intra-year movement caused by climatic changes, calendar effects, business practices, and demand expectations that ultimately consist of touristic peaks, providing relative predictability for the industry. 43ourism seasonality is socio-culturally constructed.For instance, seasonality in tourism can be produced institutionally via political decisions, actions, and policies enshrined in legislation and results from combined religious, ethnic, cultural, and social factors, framing touristic possibilities and tendencies. 44Furthermore, social trends and practices produce seasonality by promoting specific images of a place through social media. 45owever, even though tourism seasonality is socio-culturally built, it is still tied to seasonal climatic variations.
Seasonality is often considered to be one of the most significant challenges for tourism destinations, impacting both the tourism industry and local communities. 46Additionally, seasonality brings significant issues in terms of sustainability, such as pressure on resource use and the crowding of tourist sites. 47However, the standard conceptualisation of seasonality often refers to market-derived temporal imbalances that highlight the visitor demand perspective, 48 rather than supply-side factors such as the economic agency of local actors and their power in the global tourism economy.

Seasonality and sustainability in tourism development
Seasonality is entangled with tourism planning and decision-making in everyday tourism practices.Similarly, regional branding in northern Finland results from the continuous interplay between tourists' representations and expectations on the one hand and the local tourism actors producing branding strategies, Arctic tourism activities, and experiences on the other hand. 49From a sustainability perspective, tourism products and experiences should be developed jointly with the local community.Local concerns should be included in tourism development to participate in local communities and gain their support to avoid challenges related to social carrying capacity and uneven distribution of benefits and burdens. 50Furthermore, it is worth noting that not all tourism industry actors consider seasonality to be a problem to overcome. 51Hence, 'identifying the "ideal" degree of seasonality for a destination remains a relevant and important question'. 52ogués-Pedregal, Travé-Molero, and Carmona-Zubiri argue that current tourism management strategies can be conceptualised as oriented 'towards the outside' (export) and 'towards the inside' (host community). 53The export-oriented approach is based on exogenous valorisation and production of tourism resources, viewing destinations primarily in economic terms to adapt and cater to the touristic clientele's demands, aesthetics, and desires.For example, ski resorts may specifically target foreign visitors by providing services that are customised to their preferences and requirements, which often differ from traditional offerings.These services may include all-inclusive packages, luxurious accommodations, spas, or golf services that are not commonly found in the destination region.Here, tourism development is seen as a collaborative project for the community to search for territorial development, regional survival, and vitality, aiming to diversify the industry's potential in peripheral areas and foster dependency on international tourists and non-local actors.On the other hand, a host-community-oriented approach (endogenous) may prioritise sustainable tourism practices, community engagement, and cultural preservation.
Andriotis originally listed exogenous and endogenous strategies as key features of tourism development. 54Exogenous development based on foreign ownership resulted in limited local multiplier effects and revenue leakages due to its focus on mass tourism, enclave destinations, and large-scale infrastructure.This approach was termed 'conventional' tourism development.In contrast, endogenous development, considered 'conscious', emphasised local involvement, limited scale, and visitor numbers, with some degree of tourism control by residents.The endogenous-exogenous divide is employed in the study of Ylläs to examine the tension between various tourism visions, shedding light on the challenges arising from increasing tourism demand and intensifying development in a destination long characterised by its 'village' atmosphere and absence of mass tourism.
Biased representations of the Arctic are often made by outsiders -from popular narratives, films, and myths -for outsiders. 55As tourists expect to experience activities matching their expectations, regional branding has also become a tool for local tourism actors' promotional strategies. 56However, Arctic regions are undergoing significant transformations because of climate change, 57 impacting both the seasonal dynamics of the tourism industry and the daily lives of local communities.The uncertainty and response to climate change in Arctic tourism can already be seen in the increasing adoption of artificial snowmaking, snow storage, and plans to enclose ski slopes at Finnish ski resorts. 58They also serve as a direct response to the challenges of seasonality.Although initially developed to guarantee snow during the main seasons, technological solutions are starting to change the vision of tourism.For example, the doming of ski slopes has already been proposed for new resorts in the Arctic Circle (e.g., the Republic of Santa Claus and Ounasvaara destinations). 59Such technological solutions to battle snow insecurities come with extensive environmental footprints (e.g., land, water, and electricity), raising concerns over maladaptation and long-term environmental sustainability. 60ourism strategies that rely on homogenous Arctification and globally oriented branding point to exogenous, outbound-originating development and practices -we suggest this approach can be characterised as an exogenous Arctification strategy.Here, the accentuation of place and its features are based on the lure of volume and growth in 54 Andriotis, 'Options in Tourism Development', 80-82. 55Pedersen and Viken, 'From Sami Nomadism to Global Tourism'; Saarinen and Varnajot, 'The Arctic in Tourism'. 56Bohn and Varnajot, 'A Geopolitical Outlook on Arctification'. 57Serreze, Brave New Arctic. 58Varnajot and Saarinen, 'Emerging Post-Arctic Tourism'. 59Lunden, 'The Biopolitics of Artic Tourism'. 60 the form of demand-crafted specialisation and production of Arcticness.In contrast to adapting to Arctification, we suggest that an exogenous de-Arctification strategy challenges Arctification by fostering tourism activities, which are widespread yet not dependent on globalised Arctic images.De-Arctification strategies were first mentioned by Cooper, Spinei and Varnajot, as a tool to mitigate the negative impacts of Arctification, especially regarding sustainability. 61However, this approach contrasts with exogenous Arctification, as it is adjusted to global images employed that do not have their roots in the local way of life in the destination.
Finally, the Arctic can be understood in a more endogenous, inbound manner, underlining a more varied view of northern Finland.Here, an endogenous Arctification strategy adapts to Arctification but combines it with local characteristics, whereas an endogenous de-Arctification strategy opposes Arctification by deriving from the local way of life.We particularly consider the endogenous de-Arctification strategy as a potential approach that focuses on a 'towards the inside' perspective, aiming to diversify tourism products and reduce reliance on seasonality and simplified Arctic imagery.

The case study area of Ylläs tourism destination in Finnish Lapland
This study provides an empirical understanding of seasonality and Arctification from the Ylläs tourism destination in Finland (Figure 1).In Ylläs, the resort area has developed next to two local villages, Äkäslompolo and Ylläsjärvi, and the Pallas-Ylläs National Park.Tourism in Ylläs has developed around skiing and other winter-based activities and, thus, faces strong seasonality, with strong peak seasons and quiet periods, especially during summer and early autumn.Although tourism in Ylläs began in the 1930s with well-off citizens visiting from southern Finland, 62 it is now an international tourism destination due to increasing number of international tourists and growth-oriented tourism development strategies that have focused on ski resorts in Finnish Lapland. 63In addition to downhill skiing operations and the vast cross-country skiing track network, there is a selection of programme service providers in Ylläs offering snowmobiling, northern light safaris, mountain biking, husky safaris and snowshoe activities.Official tourism policies in Ylläs are predicated on expanding the local tourism economy and the following regional economic impacts.Tourism in Ylläs has been growing, reflecting the past growth trajectory of Finnish Lapland based on, for example, good flight availability, successful marketing, versatile tourism products, availability of 'pure nature', and snow security, in contrast to the decline of international visitors to the Alps region. 64However, this general Arctic tourism growth trend came to an abrupt halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 65 which drastically and temporally changed the circumstances.In 2019, the internationalisation rate of tourism in Ylläs was 47%. 66International tourists visit the region mainly during the winter season (Figure 2). 61Cooper et al., 'Countering "Arctification"'. 62Niskakoski and Taskinen, Äkäslompolo. 63TEM, Achieving More Together,15; LMP, Lapland's Tourism Strategy. 64Falk and Vieru, 'International Tourism Demand to Finnish Lapland'. 65

Materials and methods
This study employed an ethnographically-oriented data collection featuring indepth, semi-structured interviews with 37 local tourism actors during a five-week fieldwork period in Ylläs, Kolari municipality, Finland, in 2015. 67The sample included tourism entrepreneurs, representatives from third-sector organisations, and local municipality representatives.Participants were selected based on purposeful sampling to represent diverse enterprises, fields of business, locations, and principles of diversity according to age, gender, and birthplace.The interview topics focused on tourism actors' engagement and collaboration in local tourism development and the desired destination development visions.Interviews, conducted in Finnish, aimed to gain insight into local views on the challenges and opportunities in the Ylläs area's tourism.Collected data were transcribed and coded using NVivo software into preliminary themes based on the participants' insights.
Finally, the responses and preliminary themes were examined in relation to interviewees' perspectives on destination development strategies, tourism seasonality, and related challenges, as viewed through the lens of Arctification.For data analysis, standard qualitative content analysis was conducted. 68The analysis aimed to identify key issues, categorise differing viewpoints and examine findings in light of the literature on seasonality and tourism development.Themes included motivations for year-round tourism, winter tourism challenges, and resort-focused versus more scattered development.Thematic results were contextualised within Arctic tourism branding and Arctification literature, analysing actors' views as adaptation or resistance to different tourism development visions and seasonality.These views were further examined as examples of endogenous and exogenous tourism development.The discussion section delves further into the interplay between Arctification, seasonality, and development strategies while considering tourism's sustainability implications.

Diverse motivations for year-round tourism
Generally, interviewed tourism actors in Ylläs shared a desire for year-round tourism development and further tourism growth driven by international visitors.The interviewees discussed the topic with a hopeful tone, highlighting its importance, but many were not overly optimistic about the actual possibilities of increasing tourism in the current off-season.Mobilising summer season tourism has had limited success so far, especially in contrast to the winter season.Many felt that much effort had already been put into year-round tourism development without meaningful progress.Nevertheless, the interviewees also offered several suggestions for developing year-round tourism.They also identified different reasons why it has been challenging to reduce tourism seasonality in Ylläs.It is noteworthy that the interviewees had differing opinions on how year-round tourism development should be linked to growth.
A few respondents expressed a categorical lack of interest in the summer season, rationalised through 'laws of tourism,' making the industry inherently seasonal.At best, Ylläs was seen as capable of extending its 'shoulder' seasons, not creating new peaks per se.This viewpoint had a strong essentialist stance, seeing the area profoundly as a winter and snow-based tourism destination, also indicating a dichotomy between the destination as a business environment and home.The former exists only in winter, whereas the latter remains year-round.On the other hand, some entrepreneurs expressed only a vague or minor interest in summer tourism due to the need for maintenance and inactivity breaks during low seasons.In particular, entrepreneurs may feel that working intensively during the peak season requires or allows for a break in the low season.Some interviewees highlighted that they were also busy when tourists were gone.Indeed, they are involved in supplemental and tourism-supporting livelihoods, such as haymaking, reindeer herding, berry picking, and logging.Thus, tourism accommodation and income statistics do not necessarily reflect seasonality preferences of tourism entrepreneurs.
Tourism growth was considered necessary to increase the local community's vitality in the destination area.However, a few challenges have emerged, such as maintaining local services during quiet periods, creating stable employment throughout the year, and limited accessibility and transportation services in the low season.During the peak seasons, employee availability and recruitment create significant problems.Nevertheless, interviewees underlined that developing tourism in off-seasons would help achieve growth without increasing the number of tourists in winter.This was linked to many interviewees' desires not to have new tourism-related constructions in Ylläs.Comments covering overall visitor growth were agnostic.One of the interviewees described a will to 'keep tourism (here) more limited'.Among many other respondents, Ylläs was still depicted as free from pejoratively described 'industrial' and 'mass' tourism, which was also seen as risking the 'unique features' of the place and causing crowding.Here, growth preferences were mainly described through the vision of lowering the peak season tourism pressure through the better spread of visitors.Some interviewees explained that there was already a lack of capacity during the busiest periods, and thus, from their perspective, it was not necessary to grow tourism in the peak seasons.In addition, the interviewees maintained that limiting growth during peak seasons could help mitigate the overall and adverse local environmental effects of tourism.Tourism was also contrasted with other local natural resource industries, mainly forestry, and mining, and depicted as a potentially more environmentally sustainable option, saving forests and landscapes for tourism.This desired tourism future is summarised in the following comment: Yeah, we certainly hope that tourism would be a yearround activity while acknowledging that tourism itself is not environmentally unproblematic -but at least it limits the logging (in the area).Although tourism isn't unproblematic either . . .I do not want mass tourism in the area either.I would like to have year-round tourism on a smaller scale, not industrial-level tourism.I feel that this place would lose its uniqueness.
Key actors in ski resort operations endorsed year-round tourism development.However, this was not perceived to limit the general progress of winter tourism development.Instead, an interviewee highlighted that it is necessary to increase tourism yearround to attract international investors, such as well-known hotel chains, to the destination.Furthermore, the growth in tourist numbers in the current off-season enables more significant investments and new tourism construction connected to the resort, facilitating growth in the winter season.Following this thinking, a 'critical tourist mass' is required.This perspective contrasts sharply with the viewpoints that regard year-round tourism to halt further tourism infrastructure development in the destination.

Problematics of winter tourism
A few entrepreneurs linked winter season success and the long winter tourism traditions of Ylläs as a burden to extending the seasons.A specific criticism was that Ylläs was perceived among some tourism actors purely as a ski resort.For instance, this became visible in how skiing tourism, notably downhill skiing, was traditionally prioritised in destination marketing.However, the winter ski resort-centric portrayal of the destination was deemed inaccurate by some participants, as the area also hosts a variety of other popular activities.
Many interviewees presented summer season tourism development as hindered by the lack of interest expressed by the larger winter season actors, who had the most power in destination decision-making.Issues of power and capability to impact tourism development were among the main recurring themes of the interviews.Also, the media was criticised for using the term 'skiing centre' instead of 'tourist centre' when referring to Ylläs and, in this way, reproducing the winter-based image of the area.At some level, the winter season's success was seen as a burden for re-branding and developing tourism in Ylläs.
In addition, the opening and closing of the area's main hotels follow tourism demand temporalities.It was seen as a challenge that some of the largest hotels, whose primary season is during winter, close for the summer season.As larger hotel chains justify their decisions based on economic profitability on a company scale, the needs of tourism villages are left secondary.The challenge created by the largest hotels staying closed in the summer also exemplifies their critical role in the local tourism network, as they bring in customers and highlight the power hierarchies between local tourism actors.Not all entrepreneurs are similarly able to influence how year-round tourism develops at the destination, but some, for example, many restaurants, shops, and programme service providers, are dependent on major companies' decisions.An interviewee also described such practices as a disgrace, as a sign of Ylläs 'not being a real tourism destination', implying a certain lack of commitment to tourism development by some.A hierarchy of efforts and tacit knowledge of whose efforts matter seemed present in the descriptions of power relations in tourism development efforts.Themes of dependency on large-scale visitor rates and prominent actors point to power relations and different conceptualisations of seasonality as a problem or possibility for tourism actors.
Some tourism actors experienced winter-focused ski resort development as an aesthetical burden for other seasons.The fell's downhill skiing slope markers were criticised as they were visible in the snowless season.One of the respondents described the ski slopes and the fell as 'raped', as a kind of necessary evil to limit tourism's broader impact in the area.Landscaping had been discussed for a long time, but one interviewee had experienced that not enough effort had been made.This evokes a rationale of sacrifice and compromise, as the slope markers were deemed an integral part of the tourism equation.The Ylläs fell, where the downhill skiing slopes are, were further described by another respondent as 'our industrial factory', and he saw the markers as justified.The use of the fell was rationalised utilitarianly by limiting wider areal impacts and therefore conserving six other local fells in the area.

Visions for resort-oriented and scattered tourism development
Two main visions were offered to increase tourism and interest outside winter periods: scattered and resort-oriented development.The first one, a more bottom-up approach, relies on developing nature tourism, not dependent on winter and snow.The two local villages of Äkäslompolo and Ylläsjärvi and their natural environment were focal points for these new activities.These included nature-based activities such as fishing and lakebased activities, and at that time, new mountain biking products and trail network development.Additionally, developing events was seen as an essential way to attract visitors during the summer.It was shared that organising such events relied on local people's volunteering, cooperation, and business actors' participation.These included village-driven events, such as small music festivals or gatherings around specific sports activities, such as longboarding.These somewhat scattered development visions accentuated the role of off-the-shelf and small-scale solutions in summer tourism development in changing the winter-focused image.Domestic tourists were also seen as a primary target group in these discussions.
Local small-scale activities and the natural environment in summer tourism development were highlighted as central to destination-level development.In order to expand the spatial imaginary of the resort, it was deemed necessary to incorporate not just the villages of Ylläsjärvi and Äkäslompolo, but also more distant villages, local culture, and natural attractions from the Kolari municipality into the Ylläs tourism offering.Such an approach does not exist during the winter.Regional remarketing and expansion of a place and destination attachment to associate Ylläs with activities beyond the ski resort mean 'regionalising' the destination and linking it to the region's other potential attractions, covering nearby villages, the Tornio-Muonio River (e.g., salmon fishing and rafting) and reindeer herding-related activities.The local Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park's potential positive role in summer tourism was mentioned, but with caution due to acknowledging the conservation and regulation of tourism in protected areas.This regional viewpoint takes a less resort-oriented approach to summer tourism development and marketing to take advantage of the surrounding areas as potential attractions, highlighting how the resort area, in its current form, is not regarded as sufficient for summer tourism development.
The second vision aims to detach Ylläs from its traditional summer brand and does not focus on the local natural and cultural characteristics.Some respondents offered 'masterplans' describing remedies to current seasonal problems.Place detachment ideas covered visions of spas, golf courses, and walkable village centres imitating central European and Alpine cultural traditions to condense services in demand, 69 especially for the idealised foreign tourist segments.These masterplans represented visions of the winter season's reproduction of scale in the summer.Overcoming visitor fluctuation seems to be associated with large-scale development and volume, and the role of hotels and on-boarding significant players to attract volume is seen as mandatory for these efforts.Additionally, to diversify the range of summer activities available in the area, some efforts were made to introduce new offerings, such as bike parks in the ski slope area.These actors also sought to rebrand the Ylläsjärvi side of the fell as 'Sports Resort Ylläs', with a focus on promoting the resort as a sports destination rather than solely a ski resort.
The premise of 'quality, not quantity'', captures the ideal summer season tourism idea of actors who trust the potential of international summer tourism.Domestic tourists were portrayed as uninterested in spending time in the summer at the Ylläs destination due to competing interests, such as summer cottages, sailing, and the southern archipelago.In addition, some depicted domestic tourists as leaving little or nothing for operators in terms of cash flow.Some interviewees used these reasons to justify their foreign marketing focus.One of the entrepreneurs described typical Finnish tourists through the example of caravaners: 'who fill their water tanks for free and leave'.In comparison, foreign tourist segments were idealised as high-consuming, secure 'heads-to -beds' clients, dependent on services and accommodation.

Approaches to Arctified branding
The views on seasonality reflect the presence of strong regional branding in Ylläs' tourism industry, particularly in the form of export-oriented solutions that underline stereotypical images and 'cloned' approaches to overcome typical seasonality challenges.This was especially evident in terms of development paths towards growth trajectories focusing on winter tourism, branding the destination along with promoted Arctic imaginaries, and expanding foreign visitor numbers.Here, some tourism actors did not see seasonal dependency and demand as a problem.Instead, according to some 69 Tissot, 'From Alpine Tourism to the "Alpinization"'.
respondents, tourism should be developed according to demand which was perceived mainly within the lines of white winter, through a classic Arctic imaginary of the North referring to exogenous Arctification.However, as we later represent, endogenous Arctification can also be seen as a strategy to develop tourism in a more plural and diverse direction, ideally into a less dependent state on global tourism flows and winter tourism.At the same time, alternative paths starting from the global identity of Lapland as the Arctic, can also be identified.Following this, the views can be grouped into two approaches: those adapting to more globalised place identities and others opposing them.Thus, to interpret interviewees' tourism development and growth views regarding place identity, globalisation, and Arcticness, we explore the results in light of the Arctification phenomenon in tourism.Finally, different approaches to tourism development in the results are discussed considering exogenous and endogenous spatial strategies, focusing on Arctification and its opposition (Figure 3).

Adapting to Arctification
The associated Arcticness of the Ylläs tourism destination focusing on snow, winter, and wilderness for attracting more international customers was present in the interviewees' perspectives on tourism development.Yet, partially contradicting exogenous and endogenous adaptation strategies to Arctification can be identified.
First, many tourism actors wished for growth in foreign visitors via detached spatial planning, which derives from the destination's image and appearance rather than its context and culture.This can be seen as an exogenous Arctification strategy (Figure 3, I), striving to establish a spatial identity for Ylläs rooted in simplified Arctic imaginaries that resonate with visitor profiles of stereotyped and standardised global ideal-type visitors.This represents an idea of branding natural seasons as commodified attractions, embodying isomorphic valorisation of the destination to align with perceived global demand and taste. 70Similarly, Ylläs, as a ski resort popular among domestic tourists, can be seen as a manifestation of modifying northern winters into a commodified product and attraction, in a particular, repetitive form for tourism and recreation demand.
Second, an endogenous Arctification strategy (Figure 3, II) can be contrasted with an exogenous strategy.An endogenous strategy is indifferent or agnostic towards tourism development, aiming for strong growth, for example, new tourism construction and additional tourist numbers in the peak season.Instead, it underlines adaptation to the very seasonal nature of the industry itself and positions it among multiple livelihoods in the region. 71The critical stance towards 'masses' and significant infrastructural investments further represents an idealisation of the preferred scale and tourism role in the area.The endogenous strategy emphasises year-round tourism development as less resort-oriented.This is done by recognising the entangled nature of tourism and local lifestyles, which leads to spatially scattered tourism development intending to spread its benefits more broadly at the local level.Furthermore, the strategy points towards context-driven tourism valuation with an adaptation to place instead of purely bending to demand.72

Opposing Arctification
Seasonality can also be employed against Arctification by considering how seasonality and representations of a 'mono-Arctic', are a problem for tourism and sustainability.Here, the analytical concept of de-Arctification as a deconstruction of regional imaginaries provides a possible way forward.De-Arctification challenges stereotypical winterfocused images of the Arctic.This presents an important viewpoint regarding tourismdependent regions in northern latitudes, as touristic resources, landscapes, and seasonal climates are the premises of tourism-based livelihoods.
Regarding future destination development, the tourism actors of Ylläs listed new and old pull factors and activities, understood here as processes of de-Arctification to overcome seasonal dependency with different attitudes towards visitor growth and timing.De-Arctification in Ylläs foremost relates to changing the destination's image purely as a snow-and ski-based resort.The broader atmosphere that successfully supports winter season tourism was seen as limiting and untruthful compared to Ylläs' true character and what the area offered.
As mentioned, Arctification can be understood as a tourism development approach oriented towards exogenous or endogenous strategies.A similar categorisation can be applied to the case of de-Arctification in Ylläs.Exogenous de-Arctification (Figure 3, III) refers to abandoning the dependency on Arctic conditions by deriving other ways of matching outsiders' expectations and imaginaries.An example of an exogenous de-Arctification strategy can be identified from the data.In Ylläs, domestic visitors were seen as uninterested in the area due to competing southern holiday possibilities.Therefore, some respondents envisioned more considerable changes at the destination, 'southern solutions' to extend the touristic scope, such as large hotels, spas, and golf courses to respond to the assumed leisure demand.This poses an interesting question of how de-Arctification can also be seen as a strategy of expanding towards, for example, the imagined South instead of the imagined North.However, in this strategy, the idea is still to homogenise a destination by responding to tourists' assumed wishes and potentially aiming for growth instead of underlining the vitality of the destination community.
In contrast, endogenous de-Arctification (Figure 3, IV) expands and pluralises spatial imaginary and emphasises detachment from local variations and seasonality.The challenge here is to overcome simplified representations of the Arctic.Endogenous de-Arctification strategies are based on valuing contextual variation and recognising the multitude of seasons and seasonal activities beyond the snow period.Furthermore, they can emphasise respecting environmental living conditions in the area and direct tourism towards more sustainable visitor numbers.Endogenous de-Arctification strategies in Ylläs can, for example, be derived from tourism activities that are environmentally less stressful and based on local rhythms of the year, with activities rooted in diverse and dynamic local customs, histories, and cultures.To employ a genuinely endogenous approach, locals ought to approve of representations of culture in tourism.

Arctification and de-Arctification in light of sustainability
Generally, both Arctification and de-Arctification can act as catalysts for tourism growth, which may give rise to discussions about the socio-ecological sustainability of such growth in the Ylläs area.In this context, addressing seasonality relies on industry expansion, aiming to flatten demand peaks with year-round growth.However, flattening peaks through growth poses an environmental policy challenge for the industry due to accelerating tourism-related emissions and local environmental impacts. 73Alternatively, some tourism actors framed the solution as a zero-sum logic, with a more even distribution of tourists.Nevertheless, detaching from seasonality can pose the problem of desiring year-round visitors while also requiring a recuperation period, especially among more lifestyle-oriented entrepreneurs. 74This illustrates the complexity of seasonality, especially regarding local-level experiences that highlight the recuperative and multiple livelihood-based benefits of seasonal variations.
The views on tourism development in Ylläs represent contradictory visions on how to 'sell the silence' to produce high seasons or multiple peaks outside winter.Although there is an aspiration for growth, the Arctic summer is simultaneously perceived and promoted through imagination as accommodating a limited number of visitors.The destination of Ylläs is perceived as being caught between two competing imaginaries: one that is built on its appeal as an 'un-touristic' option and another that envisions further international development.At the same time, it is perceived to suffer from crowding and immaturity as a destination, unable to accommodate more visitors or overcome seasonal visitor fluctuations.However, the benefits of adopting or defying Arctification strategies in responses to seasonality remain uncertain.Nevertheless, the scale of growth and place-driven nature of tourism are particularly relevant questions in relation to environmental sustainability, given the present and future climate vulnerability of nature-based tourism in the Arctic (e.g., snow deficiency and investments in artificial snow machinery). 75inally, it should be noted that tourism actors' possibilities to affect seasonality sources are limited compared to the institutional factors of seasonality.However, from an endogenous, bottom-up perspective, it may be possible to attract enough tourists in the off-season through small-scale development actions.The created tourist flow can become sufficient and meaningful for individual tourism businesses, even if they do not boost year-round tourism on a large scale.

From 'Arctic-tagging' to more humble tourism?
Regarding sustainability, tourism actors' approaches to seasonality, coloured with nuances of Arctification or de-Arctification, differed significantly in their logic.Smaller tourism entrepreneurs generally highlighted the need for seasonality to prepare for peaks as a form of endurance-building and recuperation.As most tourism operators represent small-or middle-size companies, the need for seasonality providing recuperation becomes understandable.Limits were already experienced through a lack of capacity, expressed through full bookings and serving capacity.
A decade ago, Bourdeau called for more diverse tourism strategies that reimagined the offered products to break stereotypical and outdated tourism models, spaces, and participants. 76The same challenge is relevant to tourism in northern Europe, where Arctification and seasonality are prominent factors.Thus, the question arises as to whether tourism development strategies should embrace and incorporate local diversity and demand patterns or prioritise growth-driven approaches to counteract economic inefficiencies arising from underutilised accommodations.Some responses can be found in today's situation, as the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the tourism landscape of northern Finland.It would be tempting to expect transformations towards less seasonal and export-oriented tourism, but there is limited proof of this so far.The export-oriented and exogenous ideals of tourism development seem to continue.For example, major ongoing hotel investors in Finnish Lapland were confident of recuperation, and post-pandemic visitor growth seemed to be largely taken for granted. 77urthermore, the function of domestic and local tourism is predominantly perceived as a provisional temporary solution that, in conjunction with public economic stimulus, maintains the sector's momentum before reverting 'back to normal' and resuming more export-driven tourism. 78In general, international tourism's prompt return to Lapland was observed immediately after the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions receded.
The challenge of seasonality in Ylläs provides a typical example of mainstream tourism development and framing of sustainable tourism.Seasonality is still widely perceived as a curse, and tourism development as the remedy (just done better this time).However, as Huijbens suggests, 79 there is a need for a humbler relationship between tourism, nature 75 Tervo-Kankare, 'The Consideration of Climate Change'. 76Bourdeau, 'The Alps in the Age of New Style Tourism'. 77Yle, 'Christmas' Aviation Tourism'. 78Helsingin Sanomat, 'What Happens to Lapland's Tourism'. 79Huijbens, Developing Earthly Attachments.
and the Arctic environment.For example, rather than striving to elevate the Arctic's image and location to its 'optimal' level, some tourism actors highlighted the potential benefits of a pause, which might be considered a broader recommendation for addressing the intensified tourism development in northern Europe and in the Arctic.As suggested in this article, Arctification presents an attempt to brand and attach northern Europe to the globalised image of the Arctic.This potentially leads to increasing 'Arctic-tagging' of new geographies searching for tourism-driven local vitality.As such, Arctified responses to tourism development remind what Relph described as insensitive and arrogant spatial imagination 80 the production of places based on global similarities rather than the rhythms, cultures, and life-worlds of destinations.

Conclusions
In tourism, (regional) discourses generally shape and stimulate spatial practices. 81As such, the reductionist narratives and representations of the Arctic conveyed and disseminated by the phenomenon of Arctification direct how Arctic tourism should all be about from the tourist's perspective.As a result, Arctification further affects the social spatialisation and place production of northern Europe, pictured as a standardised Arctic. 82Therefore, this study brings new light on how Arctification influences place production processes at the local level of the Ylläs destination.Based on the results of this study, tourism actors' views on tourism development and seasonality can be divided into approaches adapting to Arctification on the one hand and approaches opposing Arctification on the other hand.Both approaches include exogenous and endogenous strategies.The exogenous approaches present a relatively straightforward answer to reducing fluctuations in tourist demand by processes of promotional simplification and exaggeration of northern Finland as a place.The study proposes that these development paths could be reconsidered by pointing to endogenous strategies.Generally, de-Arctification, which aims to expand the spatial imaginary of the Arctic beyond winterbased activities, can represent a more locally rooted, rural vitality, liveability, and social capital-enhancing approach to tourism development.However, we must carefully evaluate the use of de-Arctification due to its potential emphasis on growth while also considering the possible local and global environmental consequences of tourism demand in northern destinations.
Nevertheless, seasonality has generally been perceived as problematic for the industry.The peaks and fluctuating demand were presented not as a problem of too many visitors but as a lack of visitors outside peak seasons.Here, the focus was on the demand's sustenance rather than the demand's sustainability, and the remedy to seasonality was to eliminate off-seasons through further growth.In this context, tourism achieves its relative sustainability through negation based on a comparison with competing regional natural resource sectors such as mining and logging.The significant impacts and challenges were related to seasonality risks impacting local vitality, employment, and services. 80Relph, Place and Placelessness.: 81 Tuan, 'Language and the Making of Place'. 82Saarinen and Varnajot, 'The Arctic in Tourism'.
Modern life and tourism are engaged in an overheated relationship, leading to the homogenisation of cultural and biological aspects of life. 83Simultaneously, the capacity of tourism to either make or break places has become more apparent than ever before. 84onsequently, evaluating the cultural and ecological sustainability of tourism is more crucial than ever.Therefore, this paper aims to develop a viewpoint for creating an understanding of seasonality and Arctification within tourism growth, in accordance with the critical sustainability perspective, to include a wider range of sustainability aspects in Arctic tourism development.
Thus, seasonality and the effects of Arctification continue to be a central focus in tourism in northern Europe. 85Further research is necessary to explore the integration of micro (local) and macro (structural) impacts of seasonality in the context of socioecological sustainability. 86It is important to note that tourism actors and operators are diverse, employing various, sometimes contrasting, approaches and strategies for their businesses.Consequently, seasonality should not be viewed as a given problem, particularly because pandemic and climate considerations may alter the strategies and outlooks of tourism operators and tourists.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Map of northern Finland showing case study location.Map layout (Copyright Outi Kulusjärvi).
Maher, 'TourismFutures in the Arctic';Jóhannesson et al., Arctic Tourism in Times of Change.