Cross‐border Regionalization and Tourism Development at the Swedish‐Finnish Border: “Destination Arctic Circle”

Abstract

Globalization, and especially the making of a “Europe of regions” has whittled away many restrictions that international borders have previously placed on mobility. The European Union's internal borders have been opened up both physically and symbolically, and cross‐border regions have become places for communication and interaction. This new regionalization process has opened up alternative possibilities and new challenges for tourism development, especially in the northern peripheries of Europe, which often consist of national borderlands. This paper discusses the changes that cross‐border regionalization, and especially the opportunity to link into funding for transnational co‐operation projects, has introduced into tourism development strategies in the Middle Tornio Valley cross‐border region. The analysis of this empirical case study of the construction of a cross‐border tourist destination emphasizes the role of the tourism industry in furthering regional identities and “borderless” regional images. Hence, in the context of the Finnish‐Swedish border, it can be noted that the landscape of state control is gradually becoming a landscape of tourism, even though the border still mostly defines the course of social, political and economic activities.