ABSTRACT
This chapter explores processes of tourism development governance in two Arctic regions: East Svalbard, Norway and Nunavut, Canada. Both regions are tourism destinations for relatively small numbers of tourists, but are nonetheless important for those involved in the businesses serving them and for their respective government authorities. Due to purely institutionalized tourism systems (Nunko et al. 2012), it can be discussed whether the areas in question really are ‘tourism regions’ or destinations (see Saarinen in Chapter 3 of this volume). But both areas are destination regions in the sense that they are affected by matters of politics, policies and governance. And in both regions tourism is expected to increase, and to create new governance needs. Developing destinations or tourist regions, as we prefer to call the two case areas, is a matter for various stakeholders (Baggio et al. 2010). Among the stakeholders are government authorities; in Arctic regions government stakeholders are probably more involved than in other regions, because of remoteness from markets, complexity of management and the need to preserve and protect vulnerable nature. Therefore, rather strict environmental regimes, primarily conducted by central or national authorities, are widely accepted in the eight countries that comprise the Arctic nations.
