Interplay of tourism and nature in the Finnish Lapland
Due to the unique nature of Northern areas, Lapland is considered
as one of the most attractive nature-tourism areas in Europe
and tourism is vital for the area’s economy (Uusitalo et al., 2006).
The Finnish Lapland (hereinafter referred to as Lapland), shown in
Fig. 1, is also the most sparsely populated region of Europe. The surface
area of Lapland is 100 369 km2 which is over 25% of the total
surface area of Finland, but the number of permanent inhabitants
was only 183 488 in 2010, 3.5% of Finnish population. This makes
population density in Lapland less than two inhabitants per km2
(Lapin ELY, 2012). As Fig. 1 illustrates, municipalities are small and
far apart, the main road infrastructure is scarce in places, whilst
tourist attractions abound