ABSTRACT
Sparsely populated Arctic tourism destinations such as Finnish Lapland and Nordkapp (North Cape) in Norway depend upon mobile tourism workers in order to accommodate tourist flows in the peak season. In this article we explore the characteristics of these workers’ mobilities, their relationships to seasonal workplaces and their potentials to become permanent residents in these peripheral areas. We draw on and refine tourism–work typologies. We distinguish between five types of workers in relation to their ways of being mobile and explore how their place attachments are based on work-oriented and tourist-related pursuits. Differences in these relationships show that mobility varies from lifestyle mobility to more economic and necessity-based mobility. For the subjects of the study, place attachment thus varied from perceptions of places where they merely kept their suitcases; to where they lived, worked and were able to undertake leisure activities; all the way to finding the comforts of home. From the peripheral region’s point of view, their attachment is important: new residents are needed because of the existing social and economic structures. However, on the basis of employee interviews, it is obvious that without year-round jobs even those who want to cannot stay.
