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Arctic Yearbook 2014
Gunnarsbyn is only 10- 15%, “but if I look at it with a bigger parameter, about 100 km, we get most
of what we need, so we use very few foreign producers for our company” (Love, participant). All of
the interviewees seem to share the view that products and services for creating tourism experiences
should be local. This is an example of how complicated sustainability challenges can often be
simplified into individual efforts that make a difference. Adaptive planning is also visible in how the
hosts attract visitors through own marketing.
Reciprocity
How do tourist hosts in Gunnarsbyn perceive common commitments to sustainability challenges? The second
research question aims to describe the levels of trust in that other tourist hosts are reciprocators in
the vulnerability challenges described above, and commit equally to meeting these in the long-term
perspective.
The previous section described how tourism practice cannot easily be disconnected from the tourist
hosts’ lifestyle. The reasons are threefold: (1) they are living in symbiosis with the company; (2) the
physical environment is their workplace at the same time as it is used for leisure time recreation and;
(3) they want to contribute to their community in their work but do so also through choosing to live
there. This kind of norm-adoptive integration of lifestyle and work indicates trust in a common code
of conduct and a critical attitude towards other types of tourism practice. “You don’t need to build a
hotel or big constructions that consume the nature when you can make use of the resources that are
already there” (Love, participant). All of the interviewees did in fact mention that their practice does
not comply with mass-tourism, but that they want the same prerequisites as areas that practice masstourism. Finland’s northern peripheries were a popular comparison because they share similar tourist
attraction but have the prerequ \