IS ROVANIEMI’S TOURISM PROBLEM ACTUALLY A GOVERNANCE PROBLEM?
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Written by Kshitij Thapa (Tourism Marketing and Management Master’s Student at University of Eastern Finland)
About 300,000 people visit Rovaniemi in a single winter, while the city itself has a population of only around 56,000. I find this ratio very interesting. When I came to Finland, I found out how popular Rovaniemi is with international tourists, and I began to understand more about the city and the tourism industry. In several Facebook groups, I noticed a repeated pattern: tourists were struggling to find affordable accommodation, while locals were posting about unacceptable actions by tourists in the city. I noticed friction between them was on the rise. By this time, I was aware of how deeply things like rules, safety, privacy, quiet hours, and a peaceful lifestyle are embedded in the Finnish way of life. Naturally, this made me curious about how the locals of Rovaniemi handle such a massive influx of foreigners in such a short timespan every year. I wanted to understand this problem deeply and offer meaningful solutions.
And so I did. I interviewed nine people, each with at least seven years of continuous residency in the city. I coded the interviews in ATLAS.ti against two frameworks: Doxey’s Irritation Index (the popular stage model of host resentment) and the new Overtourism Index (social, environmental, infrastructural, and governance pressure).
DOES RESIDENT FRUSTRATION FOLLOW A PREDICTABLE PATH?
Doxey’s model is pretty straightforward: in the beginning, people are happy with tourism’s growth, then comes indifference in attitude as the sight of tourists and tourism activities becomes regular, then irritation, and then in the final stage comes hostility. The nine interviews that I conducted did not back that up. Participant 1, who has lived in the city center all her life, is clearly angry about the situation she has had to face with Airbnb guests: “They forget that people live here.” Participant 7, who deals with tourists daily at her retail job, described something closer to contempt: visitors who “act like they own the place” because “they know that they bring us big money.” Another participant, who does not live in Rovaniemi anymore but visits every year at Christmas, gave a different opinion: he likes the international energy tourists bring to the city. Finally, Participant 3, a homeowner who does not have to face tourists regularly, put it differently: tourism “doesn’t change much of my daily routines.” These four residents offered four different stages of the Irritation Index. Four Doxey stages all appear in the same dataset at the same point in time. Several participants produced quotations across more than one stage in a single interview (for example, Irritation, Antagonism, and Euphoria coexisting at the same time).
THE BIGGEST CONCERN SEEMS TO BE AFFORDABLE ACCOMMODATION
The immediate concern for every single participant, including the one who owned a house, was housing. They acknowledged that this problem exists not just for them individually, but for the majority of the population. For some participants, it is not limited to affordability; for example, for Participant 1, the issue of noise from Airbnb guests, even during quiet hours, is just as important. Participant 7 told me about her coworker who spent an entire winter living out of a van because she could not find accommodation. Participant 9 was in the process of moving out of her apartment, and she believed, despite not knowing for sure, that her apartment was also heading for Airbnb. It was an important note for me that the first thought she had when she had to move was that the apartment was going to Airbnb.
Residents in the interviews were overwhelmingly concerned about affordable apartments and the increasingly frustrating situation with short-term rentals. While the initial expectation was to see residents frustrated mostly with tourism itself, this was not the case. The residents of Rovaniemi acknowledged the importance of tourism for the city and people’s livelihoods. Every single participant who was still residing in the city acknowledged that they regularly avoid the city centre throughout the winter season, but their biggest dissatisfaction was still related directly to the housing crisis. Several participants actually worried that locals and young students would end up leaving the city permanently due to the housing crisis. They genuinely believe this could become the trend if locals continue to struggle to find accommodation.
RESEARCH LIMITATIONS
I believe it is important for me to acknowledge that this study was done with only nine participants, and it cannot be used to generalize the entire city of Rovaniemi or other Arctic towns facing similar problems. It is also important to note that these interviews were conducted right after the peak winter season, when the frustration among the residents was probably still fresh. I believe it is possible that if I were to conduct another interview with the same residents in the autumn months, the results could be much calmer.
IS THE PROBLEM WITH TOURISTS OR GOVERNANCE?
Still, if I had to leave the reader of this blog with one important thing, it is that what is leading residents toward antagonism is not unaffordable apartments, but the governance of the city. The trust residents have in their local governance is very low, at least for issues related to tourism policies and development. Moreover, as Participant 3 said, the city only shows up once something is broken instead of being proactive.
Remember how I said I noticed some friction between tourists and locals in the beginning? After this study, I realized that the people of Rovaniemi seldom blame the tourists for the problems they are facing. If anything, most of them were actually concerned about the safety of the tourists, repeatedly mentioning how they worry about tourist drivers not knowing how to drive in snowy conditions, how to navigate the sidewalks, or even how to wear proper winter attire suited for the Arctic region. Sure, they find some activities of the tourists irritating. However, most of their frustrations were directed solely toward local governance: how they are rarely consulted about new tourism-related policies that affect their daily lives, how the housing crisis has gotten out of control, and how they feel their voices go unheard most of the time. Not once did I feel the participants were against tourism.
FINLAND’S TOURISM REPUTATION
Moreover, this is not just a problem for Rovaniemi. As stated by the European Union Intellectual Property Office, Rovaniemi continues to keep its trademark as the “official hometown of Santa Claus,” which carries a lot of weight for Finland’s tourism industry internationally, and that reputation depends heavily on residents continuing to be welcoming to tourists. If the residents continue to feel unheard and the city continues to fall behind in these areas, this tension would not stay behind the scenes from visitors for a long time. It could be more visible among the seasonal workers of the hospitality industry, as, while they are the cornerstone of the growing tourism industry, they continue to struggle to find a place to live for the winter months.
Therefore, being proactive and fixing this governance gap is not limited only to the well-being of Rovaniemi’s residents. It will also continue to keep the reputation and image of Finnish tourism as competitive and appealing internationally, which is important for its steady growth in the foreseeable future.
(Note: This research was made possible with the generous support of a grant from Suomen Ulkomaankaupan Edistämisrahaston säätiö SUE: https://suesaatio.fi/ ).