ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the concept and reality of last chance tourism (LCT) in the context of Arctic environments. The Arctic is a vast biophysical region that is composed of many sub-regions: areas that maintain similarities to the larger region, but display particular sub-regional characteristics. These sub-regional variations are significant in both tourism and climate change. The biophysical Arctic is a cold ocean with substantial ice coverage surrounded by land (Bone 1992; Chaturvedi 1996; Sugden 1989). The Arctic also has culturally constructed definitions that reflect the images and meanings that people hold of the region (Jacobsen 1994). These are particularly relevant for tourism given its reliance on image and meaning, and in the Arctic many of these views reflect the natural assets of landscapes, wildlife and climate (see Saarinen and Tervo 2006; Hall, Müller and Saarinen 2009; Lundmark 2010).
