Making places: the role of Arctic cruise operators in ‘creating’ tourism destinations

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates how Arctic expedition cruise operators ‘create’ tourism destinations and diversify tourism space through itinerary making. The study proposes a typology of perceived values of a tourism destination and explores what value dimensions are critical in deciding on cruising locations. The typology helps to explain why certain locations became popular tourism destinations and why tourism space in the Arctic is so diversified. The analysis shows that ‘creation’ and distribution of Arctic expedition cruise destinations is dominated by functional costs and benefits, related mostly to sailing conditions and shipping logistics. Emotional costs (e.g. perceived risks) also play significant roles and prevail over emotional benefits (e.g. perceived achievement) and social factors, which were found least important.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism destination
• perceived value of a destination
• value dimensions
• Arctic cruising

Acknowledgements

This article is a part of Marta Bystrowska's PhD project realized at the Centre for Polar Studies in Poland and in cooperation with the Environment, Society, and Policy Group (www.espg.ca) in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Geomatics, University of Ottawa.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Marta Bystrowska http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6364-1866

Jackie Dawson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3532-2742