ABSTRACT
The old wooden hotel Pallas, which is situated in the Pallas-Ylls national park in Finnish Lapland, has been waiting for renovation for almost 40 years. Its renovation has become an extremely conflictual issue and the hotel itself a materialisation of the problematic nature of tourism destination development. This chapter analyses the case of Pallas in order to discuss overall tourism destination development in Lapland and to study different perspectives on a nationally important place with high amenity values. It focuses on Pallas fells as an example of nature-based tourism in the municipality of Muonio. The discussions gathered 1020 participants each in the villages of Srkijrvi, Raattama, Kerssieppi, Jerisjrvi and Olos, which are located closest to Pallas, at the end of 2011 and at the beginning of 2012. The discussion around Pallas makes two things visible: the arbitrariness of defining a tourist destination and the social and physical structures that create at least some kind of path dependence.
