Sami Tourism and the Signposting of Spirituality. The Case of Sami Tour: a Spiritual Entrepreneur in the Contemporary Experience Economy

Abstract

The tourism industry provides an important insight into cultural heritage production and marketing. Therefore, it is also important to look at what elements and components are selected to represent a chosen culture in the context of tourism, where some cultural elements are placed at the forefront while others are silenced. There is an increasing tendency to highlight religious symbols and conceptions in the marketing of a tourist destination and many major tourist sites have developed largely as a result of their connections to sacred people, places and events. One of these sites is analysed, namely the location Sápmi as it is marketed on the tourism web portal www.samitour.no, where New Age spirituality in conjunction with local indigenous traditions are highlighted to promote Sápmi as a tourist site. The focus is on the signposting of religious symbols as a resource in a tourism context and the challenges connected with the merger of spiritual and commercial values.