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Järviluoma 1998; Kuyek & Coumans 2003: 18; Johansen & Skryzhevska 2013). Tourism is often a
desperate ‘last resort’ (Kauppila et al. 2009: 432) in terms of economic development and
diversification in peripheral areas. Hence, it often fails to redeem its promise as a saviour of the
economy in peripheries, especially in areas where it too, despite receiving support, proves to be
unsustainable (Schmallegger & Carson 2010: 202).
There are examples of successful economic restructuring of mining communities in the Barents
region. For example, Kolari in Finnish Lapland (Jussila & Järviluoma 1998) where regional policies
were activated to support the growth of tourism after the closure of local mines and Kirkenes near
the Norwegian-Russian border (Viken et al. 2008) have diversified and transformed their economic
base to adapt to restructuring of local mining industry. Moreover, Atikokan in north-western
Ontario shows another example of successful adaptation to the closure of the mining industry. In
Atikokan several small enterprises in various economic fields were the main drivers of the
transformation of the community’s economic base (Keyes 1992: 37–41). However, the relatively big
local populations in mining communities of the Russian North make their economic transformation
more problematic than in similar cases in natural resource peripheries of Scandinavia and Canada.
Development of small enterprises is unable to bring a major impact to local employment, which is
usually the target of local economic diversification efforts.
In several single-industry towns and resource regions in Russia there are significant unused
recreational resources and seemingly obvious opportunities for economic diversification, which
could be well-suited to domestic and international tourism (Tynkkynen 2007; Tul’chinskiy et al.
2011: 178). In several localities of the Russian North ecologically valuable locations are also bases
for abundant natural resources (Tynkkynen 2007). These ecologically valuable places could offer
opportunities for the development of tourism. However, the extraction of natural resources, such as
mineral resources and oil, often damages the ecological sites that tourists could come and see.
Therefore, a potential conflict of interests often exists in these natural resource localities. The nature
potential for tourism is also evident in the Murmansk region. Nature here offers similar
opportunities to develop nature-based tourism as in Finnish Lapland (V. Gorbunov, Deputy
Minister in the Ministry of Economic Development of the Government of the Murmansk region,
personal communication in Murmansk, June 19, 2012; A. Popova, The head of the Tourism
Information Centre of the administration of Kirovsk, personal communication in Kirovsk, June 9,
2012). Local cultures and values in communities without a history of tourism often present obstacles
to economic diversification into tourism. Hence, despite the potential, several structural issues, such
as a prevailing mono-culture and a local industrial path hinder economic diversification and a postindustrial transition from a resource economy or one with an industrial legacy to the service sector
(e.g. Toropova et al. 2007). Moreover, in mining communities, post-industrial problems, such as a
spoiled nature or environment, hamper opportunities for economic diversification into tourism.
Therefore, the emergence of a new industry, such as tourism, may give rise to conflicts between
different industries’ interests. Moreover, while mining offers a stable all-year-round income, tourism
will struggle to do so because of its seasonality (e.g. Grenier 2007: 70). Hence, diversifying from
mining to tourism is especially challenging. Consequently, for various reasons, tourism should only
Resource-Based Development & the Challenge of Economic Diversification