Editorial: Tourism issues and international borders in the Nordic Region

Introduction

Boundaries or borders and their associated security, political, socio-cultural and economic mechanisms have significant implications for regional and industrial development, trade, human mobility, social networks, cultural diversity, environmental regulations and tourism. Traditionally, international borders have been viewed as barriers, but border landscapes also provide opportunities for cross-border collaboration and development (Rumford, 2012; Timothy, 1999). Indeed, while we do not live in a borderless world, border areas are increasingly challenged and transformed by transnational border-crossing activities (Sassen, 2008). Conceptually borders can be seen in various ways, scales and levels of complexity (Wastl-Walter, 2011), and cross-border travel and tourism provides multiple ways to approach and understand borders and their roles and impacts.

While borders can hinder the mobility of people, goods and ideas, “borderlands” can also work as engines of connectivity (Rumford, 2008) and places for collaboration and exchange (Timothy, 2001). Thus, borders empower economic and cultural encounters where people, businesses, agencies and NGOs can actively construct, change and even erase the impacts and meanings of borders through “borderwork” (Rumford, 2012). Thus, most borders are dynamic and relational, and continually constituted through encounters, policies and practices. Obviously borders and border landscapes in tourism are often based on their selective openness where some people, actors and matters can move across more easily than others. This is highly evident in the current crisis of humanitarian migration in Europe.

Therefore, the connections between borders, bordering/borderwork and tourism are highly diverse. This introductory paper examines some of the traditional relationships between borders and tourism. The specific focus is on international borders, which form the core area of studies in tourism and borders. Like many other industries and forms of trade, tourism is affected profoundly by the existence of these political borders in several ways, including borders as attractions or destinations, barriers, transit spaces and determiners of tourism landscapes (Timothy, 2001). It is through the very existence of nation states and borders that international tourism is constituted as something measurable. After a short presentation of border tourism theory as part of the science of borders, and an overview of the most common perspectives in border tourism, the paper focuses on the Nordic borderscapes in tourism by highlighting some of the current changes taking place in this dynamic area of tourism research and by introducing the themes developed in this special issue by its contributing authors. Finally, future research needs are briefly discussed.

Border tourism and border studies

Since the 1990s, border studies have become a prominent research topic in several academic disciplines, not only a matter for specialized geographers as it had been before (Newman, 2006), focusing overwhelmingly on how borders came about. In recent years, the focus in border studies has gradually changed from borders as something given – as structures, which Parker and Vaughan-Williams (2012) call bordering practices. In line with this, the contemporary focus tends to be what borders do, how they perform and how they are performed (Donnan & Wilson, 2010). Borders exist as matters that direct the way people behave; borders hinder but also stimulate travel. Borders socialize, brainwash and provoke (Parker & Adler-Nissen, 2012). van Houtum (2010) writes about three border missions: bordering, ordering and othering. Bordering is about spatial matters that legitimate and justify borders. Othering is an implicit impact of this; people and cultures across borders are reciprocally kept apart, at least formally, due to different nation-state affiliations. Otherness is central to tourism in general; other places, other cultures and other climates are among the central features that attract people across borders in one way or another. Therefore, tourism also is a conveyor, and sometimes a producer, of otherness (Picard & Di Giovine, 2014).

van Houtum (2010) describes how borders produce socio-spatial order, organizing life in a border zone. The ordering role of tourism has also been recognized and is a matter of discourse in tourism theory (Abram, 2014; Franklin, 2004, 2012). Borders, and in particular border tourism, organize and order people’s movements and behaviors in border zones. Transport, gateways, visa-handling offices, tour operators, guides and other services direct and control the movement of tourists. And borders and their regimes in different ways – through marketing, publicity, facilities and services – transform people to border tourists adding to the consumption that the modern society and the market economy is based on, and to borders as zones of profit-making.

The performative perspective of borders reflects a general turn in social sciences dating back to scholars such as Goffman and Turner. Schechner (2013, p. 3), an observer of the field, claims that performances are actions that are “framed, presented, highlighted or displayed” and existing in interactions and relationships. Borders are staged through border regimes, including fences, visas and passport controls, but also through highly dynamic fields such as politics, rhetoric and dialog. Tourism plays a central role in these matters. Tourism is about performance (Bærenholdt, Haldrup, Larsen, & Urry, 2004); the industry performs, tourists perform and border tourism is a performance telling of peaceful or contentious international relations. Such performances have a public audience. When Russia’s borders with Norway and Finland were made easier to traverse, tourism was the first major manifestation of the changes; Russians came to see  the West and to shop, while the Finns and Norwegians undertook cultural exchanges, often initiated or subsidized by the authorities (Espiritu & Viken, 2012). Positive stories from the neighboring countries circulated, and the more people travelled across, increasingly more positive attitudes emerged (Espiritu & Viken, 2012). Many borderlanders even admit to having a border “identity” (Viken, Granås, & Nyseth, 2008).

According to Scott (2012, pp. 86–87),“borders are constantly made through ideology, symbols, cultural mediations, discourses, political institutions, attitudes and everyday forms of border transcending and border conforming”. This is also a suitable characteristic of the context for border tourism. Borders constitute a front stage for national state authorities to demonstrate their politics toward a neighboring country. Although the politics of the borders normally is settled in the capitals and through international or bilateral negotiations, the borders tend to be the stage for signing treaties and celebrating neighborliness. In this way, the Dutch city of Maastricht and Kirkenes, Norway, have become well-known border towns. Visits by central politicians and important political events held in border towns create public awareness of border-related activities, and motivate border-crossing activities. Often such events are accompanied by cross-border cultural exchanges and increased exposure. Border-related culture and arts have been important parts of the political treatment of Russia by its western neighbors. In this way, tourism has represented a smooth start of relationships that for several decades had been hindered by the Iron Curtain.

The relational perspective on borders is implicit in the above reasoning. In a relational perspective, borders are not a resource for tourism per se, but an opportunity for product development (Barthelt & Glückler, 2005). Borders become resources through encounters with politicians, bureaucrats, businesses, organizations, artists, tourists and ordinary people. The borders of the Soviet Union were not treated as resources for tourism before the political changes in 1990, and tourism across this border is still modest, owing to rather strict border (and visa) regimes, although tourism is now definitely an opportunity for the northern borderlands (García-Rosell et al., 2013).

The northern borderlands of Norway, Sweden and Finland have not been of tourist interest for long. In 2016, a project initiated by the Nordic prime ministers was agreed on to create an Arctic destination of these three countries’ northern borderlands (Prime Minister’s Office (Finland), 2015). A relational approach to border tourism can unveil how such dialogs, more or less formalized, support tourism development. Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, a border is not only a structure, but an agency for tourism development, and as Brunet-Jailly (2005, p. 644) claims, “agency and structure are mutually influential and interrelated in the shaping of emerging and integrated borderlands”. Our point is, as will be elaborated on in this special issue, that borders are not only a source for agency, but also have agency, creating and giving direction to cross-border tourism and tourism in borderlands.

Tourism and international borders

Destinations and attractions

Borders and their adjacent regions – “borderlands” where borders are not solely seen as lines but as spaces (Rumford, 2008) – frequently function as popular tourist destinations and attractions, and many regions’ tourism economies are based almost entirely on the existence of a political boundary (Timothy, 1995). This situation is most evident when borders themselves become an attraction and also when they create unique advantages on opposite sides that make borderlands an important destination.

Borderlines exude most of their appeal in at least six ways. First is when they result in interesting anomalies in the landscape, such as walls, fences, guard towers and unique demarcation methods (e.g. arches, pillars). Second, when opposing ideological systems (e.g. communism v. capitalism) or adversarial neighbors exist “over there” (e.g. Finland–Soviet Union, Israel–Syria, East Germany–West Germany, North Korea–South Korea), many people want to observe life across in the forbidden or highly restricted “other side”. Viewing platforms are sometimes built to give belligerents an opportunity to view the landscapes and lifestyles in the “forbidden zone” (Gelbman & Timothy, 2010; Paasi, 1996; Timothy, 2001). Third, attractions or particular sites partitioned by a border (e.g. golf courses, buildings) exude a unique appeal to visitors who may wish to be in two places at once. The fourth instance exists when natural or cultural areas are divided by a border (e.g. a beach, an archeological site, a historic wooden bridge, a sand dune). Fifth, many border-themed attractions are developed to commercialize the political divide (e.g. peace parks, customs museums, boundary theme parks) and, finally, there are hundreds if not thousands of instances where borders are commemorated and consumed as heritage sites and attractions (Blasco, Guia, & Prats, 2014; Timothy & Gelbman, 2015).

Often, the borderline itself is not of great significance in tourism, but its socio-economic implications in frontier regions are. For instance, cross-border shopping is popular throughout the world, primarily because of the different array of products available abroad and lower prices and lower taxes on opposite sides (Timothy, 2001). Likewise, different levels of permissiveness for “tourisms of vice” can result in borderlands becoming important gambling, drinking and prostitution destinations. In addition, lower health-care costs (or a failure in the health system) across the border have resulted in the exponential growth of medical tourism in some borderlands of the world (see Cuevas Contreras, 2016).

Impediments

Besides being attractions, the second way borders influence tourism is by acting as barriers to human mobility and to transfrontier tourism development (Canally & Timothy, 2007; Díaz-Sauceda, Palau-Saumell, Forgas-Coll, & Sánchez-García, 2015; Webster & Timothy, 2006). Adversarial relations between neighbors often result in the erection of physical barriers at national frontiers (e.g. fences). These barricades, together with an absence of diplomatic relations, threats of violence or exceedingly strict crossing regulations, prevent people from crossing (Gelbman & Timothy, 2010).

Bothersome border procedures, such as the need to secure visas in advance and intense scrutiny by frontier officials, can also lessen the desire of some potential travelers to visit another country. Likewise, socio-cultural, economic, political or environmental differences on the other side have been shown to dissuade many psychocentric people (see Plog, 1991) from traveling (Canally & Timothy, 2007). Leaving home for something exotic beyond one’s comfort zone is not for everyone and for many people crossing international frontiers entails just that. While many psychocentrics may opt not to travel abroad, allocentrics might appreciate the task of crossing challenging borders, not only for the prize of conquering but also to experience the extreme “othernesses” only available abroad.

In addition to individual travel, international boundaries regularly prevent the tourism industry from developing in transfrontier settings. Austere border-crossing regulations, inequivalent political wills, differing degrees of economic development, physical border barriers, protectionist economic policies and contradictory worldviews all work against collaborative, transfrontier tourism development. This typically results in asymmetrical growth on the two sides of a border or one side not developing tourism at all while it thrives nearby across the line.

Landscape modifiers

Borders frequently affect the landscapes of borderland destinations. This is particularly the case in urban settings. Specialized services are established to cater to the needs of boundary crossers, such as currency exchange offices and banks, travel insurance vendors, information offices, and customs and immigration agencies, adding to the visitability of borders and borderlands (see Dicks, 2004). Also, the physical layout of border towns is heavily influenced directly by the crossover between tourism and the geopolitical divide. The frequent clustering of services (e.g. pharmacies, street vendors, petrol stations and souvenir shops) near border crossings is illustrative of this agglomeration effect (Arreola & Curtis, 1993; Timothy, 2001). In a similar way, tourism has been known to effect change to the geopolitical landscapes of states as it has brought about cross-boundary collaboration, shared infrastructure and even exchanges in sovereign territory (Timothy, Guia, & Berthet, 2014).

Spaces of transit

The final relationship is that of borders as spaces or zones of transit. This simply means that they are spaces people must negotiate to arrive somewhere else. In this case, the boundary is not usually a destination but rather a nuisance, an ephemeral experience for people as they pass through on their way to someplace more distant. While this is an important relationship, and the least researched of them all, it reflects the ephemeral nature of borders in most tourists’ experiences and in most travel discourses.

Another important transit function of borders enables countries to collect data about arrivals, expenditures and lengths of stay. Most countries see ports of entry as funnels that not only help regulate incoming and outbound travel through established checkpoints but also as positions for data collection. With the exception of intra-Schengen land borders, most countries still rely heavily on direct border-crossing data for their tourism statistics.

Contemporary patterns: de-bordering and re-bordering

The concepts above represent traditional views of tourism and borders and are somewhat based on the assumption that borders are stagnant and rigid expressions of state power. However, recent geopolitical changes are blurring the traditional roles of borders as barriers to trade, communication and human mobility, and lines of absolute sovereign control, resulting in a process known as “de-bordering” (Wilson & Donnan, 2012). This refers to the processes involved in opening borders that were once closed – figuratively and literally – and acknowledges that borders must now be viewed as dynamic and transforming locales that live, breathe and function in ways that are incomparable to other geographic spaces. Various globalization processes, including supranationalism, transfrontier collaboration and cross-border identity formation, are firmly at the nexus of tourism and borders today and derive from the notion of de-bordering.

Supranationalism refers to neoliberal processes whereby countries join multi-state alliances that aim to decrease trade barriers and obstacles to human movement and encourage more transnational socio-economic, military, environmental and cultural connectivity. Dozens of supranational alliances exist throughout the world, and most countries are members of at least one. The European Union (EU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are among the most functional and integrated. Many supranational coalitions function as free-trade areas, customs unions or visa-free travel zones. Operationally, many of them have the following objectives: to eliminate trade and tariff barriers between member states, cooperate closely on defense and security measures, reduce travel impediments for citizens of member countries and tourists, establish a common currency between member states and institute communal passports and visas, most of which have salient implications for tourism.

While many boundaries are undergoing a de-bordering process, an increasing number are simultaneously re-bordering (Rumford, 2008). Contemporary security agendas and illegal or humanitarian immigration have resulted in re-bordering mechanisms, wherewith borders that had formerly lost much of their barrier function through de-bordering are now once again becoming a barrier to trade, migration and travel. The recent wave of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa into Europe is a profound contemporary example. Since 2014, several EU states (e.g. Hungary and Austria) have re-erected some of the physical barriers that were dismantled in the 1990s, despite these and many of their neighboring countries being signatories of the Schengen Treaty and members of the EU.

Nordic tourism borderscapes: insights from the special issue

All of the issues described above are manifested in the Nordic region (Prokkola, 2007, 2010). For instance, supranationalism is alive and well. All Nordic states, except Iceland and Norway, are members of the European Union, and all Nordic states are either members of or associated with and enjoy the border-related benefits of Schengen membership. The exceptions to this are Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Svalbard, which lie outside the Schengen zone and are not part of the EU.

Prior to the EU’s establishment, economic cooperation between Europe’s northernmost countries had existed for centuries. However, these transfrontier relationships were formalized with the establishment of the Nordic Council in 1952 to enhance collaborative development efforts between Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Finland through a common labor market and free mobility across the Nordic borders for member states’ citizens (Ingebritsen, 2000).

Under the auspices of the Nordic Council, the Nordic Passport Union was created in 1954 and launched in 1958. This coalition allows citizens of Sweden, Norway (except Jan Mayen, Svalbard and Norway’s Antarctic territories), Iceland, Finland and Denmark (including the Faroe Islands but not Greenland) to cross each other’s national borders without passport inspections (Strang, 2015). While many of the Passport Union’s original objectives have been usurped by Schengen regulations, it still provides Nordic citizens certain privileges not provided to all European citizens or non-European travelers. The Nordic Passport Union and the Nordic Council have been instrumental in cultivating a strong Nordic identity and facilitating the growth of intra-regional travel since the 1960s (Hall, Müller, & Saarinen, 2009).

In addition to Nordic-wide supranational agreements, there are countless examples of binational and local-level cross-border cooperation in many areas of socio-economic life, including tourism. Oft-cited examples are the twin towns of Tornio, Finland, and Haparanda, Sweden, working together across their common boundary for education, firefighting services, health care and tourism promotion (Ioannides, Nielsen, & Billing, 2006; Joenniemi & Sergunin, 2011; Lundén & Zalamans, 2001; Prokkola, 2008). Another example of binational collaboration is found on the Norway–Russia border in the vicinity of Kirkenes. There, special dispensation has been granted to Russians living in the proximal vicinity of the border to cross into Norway for shopping and other purposes for a maximum of 15 days, and they must remain within 30 km of the frontier. The same privilege is granted to border-residing Norwegians, who may also travel with a special multi-year visa 30 km inside of Russia (Espiritu & Viken, 2012).

In this special issue, Więckowski and Cerić’s (2016) case study delves into how supranationalism and other border-related changes have transformed Poland’s borders with its Baltic neighbors. With Poland’s ascension into the European Union and Schengen, its borders have changed dramatically from linear barriers to spaces of cooperation. Many new trans-Baltic tourism initiatives have been initiated, and there has been a significant upswing in cross-border and trans-Baltic tourism to Poland from Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

Despite the multitudinous changes that have occurred to Northern Europe’s borders since the mid-twentieth century through supranationalization and other such neoliberal processes that aim to reduce border obstacles, the frontiers of Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland still demonstrate many of the traditional relationships highlighted earlier in this introduction. Nordic land borders continue to exude an appeal for curiosity seekers, and while they are rather ordinary in many respects, they create intriguing landscapes, attractions and situations that continue to draw tourist attention. A prominent example is the tripoint marker where Norway, Sweden and Finland meet. This boundary cairn is a popular hiking destination, as is the marker where Norway, Russia and Finland convene at a single point, although there are heavy restrictions on visiting the latter locale owing to Russian border policies.

Borders dividing belligerents have a history in the region, and gazing on and over these geopolitical fulcrums has long held a romantic sentiment in the popular psyche spurred by stories of espionage, warfare and opposing lifestyles. Gazing over the border from Finland and Norway’s frontier zones into the Soviet Union was a popular pastime before 1990 (Medvedev, 1999; Paasi, 1996), and even today guided tours to the Russian border is a popular tourism product in Kirkenes. The notion that visiting the Russian border, for example, is still heavily restricted continues to captivate tourist imaginations to this day.

There are a number of examples of bisected tourist attractions. The Green Zone golf course lies astride the Finland-Sweden border at Tornio and Haparanda. The experience of playing golf across the border and hitting the ball an “hour forward” from Sweden into Finland are novelties that appeal to many golf enthusiasts.

Nordic borders divide many natural and cultural areas as well. Forests, swamps, hills, rivers and agricultural landscapes can all be found divided, sometimes adding a unique tourism dimension. For instance, myriad cottages are located adjacent to the Norwegian–Swedish border, with some of them in Sweden only being accessible through Norway and vice versa, creating a unique phenomenon referred to as pene-exclaves with distinct land-use, accessibility and taxation implications. Several important rivers are divided by international boundaries as well. The Teno (Tana) River forms a portion of the Finnish–Norwegian border and is famous for its plentiful salmon. Through cross-border agreements between Norway and Finland, anglers are permitted to fish on both sides of the border in a common license area, although the extra “fishing management fee” must be paid to the state where they are fishing. Additionally, there are a few divided islands that have some recreational and tourism potential, such as Kataja (the easternmost point of Sweden), which is split between Sweden and Finland, and Märket, a small lighthouse island partitioned by the Swedish–Finnish border near the Åland archipelago and popular among sailing enthusiasts and maritime history buffs.

There are a number of Nordic border-themed attractions. Perhaps the most famous of these, however, is the Morokulien peace monument in Norway and Sweden, which celebrates peaceful relations between the two neighbors. The border-spanning attraction is home to a shared (albeit divided) tourism information center, a peace monument, radio station, park, joint post office, shops, café and picnic area. Similarly, the northernmost point of the European Union is commemorated at Nuorgam, Finland, and an actual scale model reproduction of the Russia–Finland border at Ilomantsi, Finland, allows visitors to photograph themselves doing something otherwise prohibited – straddling the Russian border. Along the border of Denmark and Germany are a number of border museums and restaurants that commemorate their border location and heritage appeal.

The category of borders as heritage sites is also evident. Many original eighteenth-century boundary stones of Norway and Sweden still mark the state frontier between the two countries and are celebrated historic markers, particularly those located at border-crossing points. The 1595 Treaty of Teusina ended the Russo-Swedish War and re-established the Swedish–Russian border. Demarcation stones from this treaty and subsequent treaties can be found scattered throughout Finland, many of them being preserved and interpreted as heritage attractions.

The paper by Prokkola and Lois (2016) in this theme issue examines the notion of borders as heritage. They examine several ways of seeing borders as heritage players, including how the border produces heritage narratives in peripheral regions since it is in fact the reason certain heritages exist (e.g. tales, heroes, outlaws, traditions, folklore). Border-related museums, battlefields and fortresses, and festivals and other events are also an important part of the borderland heritagescapes, which they examine in the context of the Finnish–Swedish and Spanish–Portuguese frontiers. Their study emphasizes the heritagization of borders, how border heritage is produced and consumed, and the political undertones associated with this unique heritage tourism context.

Aside from borderlines themselves, shopping has become the main form of borderlands tourism in the Nordic region. Although the tax and price-leveling effects of EU membership have diminished much of the economic rationale for cross-border shopping between EU states, Swedes continue to shop in Denmark (Bygvrå & Westlund, 2005), and Danes shop in Germany for tobacco, alcohol and other consumer goods (Bygvrå, 2009). Also, thousands of Norwegians regularly shop in Sweden for alcohol, meat, cigarettes, groceries and other consumer items, taking advantage of Norway’s external EU status (Lavik & Nordlund, 2009). These trends give way to an interesting retail trade that draws people in a southward flow – Icelanders to Norway, Norwegians to Sweden, Swedes to Denmark and Danes to Germany for shopping purposes.

“Booze cruises” from Finland to Sweden, and from Sweden and Norway to Denmark were extremely popular in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and continue to be, to a lesser extent. A primary purpose of these “cruises” was to buy alcohol at much lower prices abroad and at onboard duty-free shops. Today, while the ferryboats are still important means of transportation in the Baltic, and to and from Norway, alcohol purchasing and consumption continue to be important parts of this travel experience.

In this issue, Makkonen (2016) assesses the economic impacts of cross-border shopping between Denmark and Germany. His findings suggest that transfrontier retail opportunities are an important part of local economies on both sides of the border, and that cross-border shopping and its image in the region itself have become an important part of the attractiveness of the Danish–German borderlands. He argues that the Single European Market and the Schengen treaty have actually facilitated and encouraged the growth of international outshopping at this particular boundary and recommends that cross-border shopping opportunities should be marketed by border-proximal destinations as part of their tourism-based development efforts.

There has also been a long tradition of Russians shopping in Finland and Norway. Even during the 1980s, small numbers of Soviet citizens who were lucky enough or well-connected enough to get short-term travel permits could be seen walking the streets of Helsinki, Lappeenranta and Joensuu, donning shopping bags and visiting numerous stores. Following the early 1990s’ dissolution of the USSR, Russian tourists immediately rushed over the Norwegian and Finnish borders to shop for western clothing and household products and later to participate in other tourism-related activities (Viken et al., 2008; Viken, Nyseth, & Granås, 2007).

The study by Gurova and Ratilainen (2016) in this issue delves into the phenomenon of Russian tourists, particularly cross-border shoppers, based upon the prescribed representations of Russians in the principal Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. Their content analysis from 1990 to 2014 identified certain patterns of behavior but also enabled them to examine the role of the Finnish national media in shaping Finns’ views of “Eastern tourists” based upon their unique “Othernesses” and behaviors in Finland.

Thanks to the progress of the Nordic Passport Union, the European Union and the Schengen Accord, there are currently relatively few border-induced barriers to travel and tourism development in Scandinavia, Iceland and Finland. Owing to the de-bordering process, most perceptual and physical barriers have disappeared; the regional identity developed through the Nordic Council and various EU initiatives (e.g. Interreg projects in the borderlands) no doubt have much to do with this condition (Ioannides, Nielsen & Billing, 2006; Nilsson, Eskilsson, & Ek, 2010; Prokkola, 2007, 2011). Nonetheless, even some cross-frontier efforts to consolidate public services and promote tourism jointly have faced significant challenges, such as in Haparanda and Tornio, where the new border-spanning shopping center Rajalla-På Gränsen should have been completed by 2008. At the time of writing (2016), only Finland’s side of the project had been completed (in 2008) up to the borderline. Even between close EU neighbors, true cross-border cooperation and integration are difficult to achieve (Gelbman & Timothy, 2011; Gosar, 2005; Timothy & Saarinen, 2013). The process is slow and cumbersome owing to legal mechanisms, differing levels of political will, unbalanced budget constraints and cultural distance between the two sides (Paasi & Prokkola, 2008; Prokkola, 2007).

In this special issue, Björk and Weidenfeld (2016) investigate cross-border cultural interactions between Haparanda and Tornio, suggesting that social dissimilarities and similarities (cultural proximity) on opposite sides of the border firmly influence service management, including tourism. They propose mentality, ways of solving problems, level of conservatism, shared language, focus on contextualized details and use of similar technologies as being key variables influencing cross-border cooperation in managing and promoting borderland tourism.

Nordic frontiers have also brought about significant landscape changes in many border communities. The development of shopping centers and petrol stations in close proximity to borderlines, especially where Norway adjoins its EU neighbors, creates a funneling or channeling effect that helps the destination capture its target market. In some Finnish and Swedish towns and villages, busy petrol stations, alcohol stores, bars and supermarkets are supported overwhelmingly by traffic from Norway and Russia more so than by local consumers.

Like elsewhere, the northernmost borders of Europe are for the most part lines of transit as people make their way to other destinations. However, the attractions noted earlier clearly demonstrate that this is not always the case. The best example in the Nordic area of “transit tourism” is that offered by Iceland. The island nation provides a very unique form of transit tourism as it relates to that country’s borders. Passengers flying from North America to Europe and vice versa on Icelandair are permitted to stop over on the island for up to seven days without additional fees. This is a unique benefit and one that Iceland has designed to increase its tourism income and exposure to the global marketplace. Even people who have only a single day or a stopover of several hours can relax at the Blue Lagoon thermal spa near the airport or purchase brief and inexpensive tours of Reykjavik. For passengers on short transit stops, Iceland offers a variety of in-transit activities at the airport, including the “Experience Iceland Show”, a virtual sightseeing journey through Iceland. This feature is both an educational/entertainment service and a conversion tool that Iceland’s tourism officials hope will result in people returning when they have more time.

The evolving nature of Europe’s borders today has significant implications for measuring tourism. For example, France has long been the world’s most visited country, but with the elimination of passport controls on France’s borders with its Schengen neighbors, how will we know with certainty if France can maintain that status quo? The elimination of passport inspections in the Nordic region faces similar challenges, and alternative ways of measuring tourism must be utilized. Perhaps the Nordic country in the best position to collect the most precise entry data is Iceland, since nearly all of its arrivals come through Keflavik Airport.

Even so, in this special issue, Frent (2016) examines the difficulties associated with collecting entry data at Iceland’s “frontier”. He evaluates the current procedures used by Iceland to track tourist arrivals and concludes that even though most visitors enter the country at Keflavik Airport, which should, in theory at least, make tabulating data easier, the practices and procedures of collecting data at this transit location face challenges that prevent Iceland from complying fully with international standards. These matters are obviously a concern in many other countries as well.

Future research needs

It is abundantly clear that international borders are salient actors in the performance of tourism in far northern Europe, despite the de-bordering processes initiated by the European Union, Schengen and the Nordic Council beginning in the 1950s. These changes have facilitated easier access to international travel among greater numbers of Europeans and encouraged greater levels of transfrontier collaboration in tourism development. At the same time the borders of the European far north have lost much of their barrier function, and they have continued to act as tourist attractions, landscape modifiers and transit spaces.

While this introductory paper and the individual contributions in this theme issue have highlighted many important relationships between borders and tourism, there are many related issues that have not been well examined by the tourism academy. One prominent example is the use of trails and routes as economic drivers of tourism (Timothy & Boyd, 2015). Trails and routes are an increasingly salient part of the recreation experience and tourism product, yet we know relatively little about them in the Nordic context. There are thousands of hiking, skiing and boating trails throughout the region, many of which cross international boundaries at various locales. The Iron Curtain Trail (EuroVelo 13) is a multination 7650 km trail that is currently being developed from the Barents Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. This hiking and cycling trail follows the former Iron Curtain and currently includes Norway and Finland, although crossing the border in its Nordic portions is largely prohibited. Many nature trails crisscross national borders physically; other cultural routes have borders as their primary theme. Yet additional trails follow borderlines which themselves are the linear resources upon which the trail is founded. More systematic studies of this phenomenon in northern Europe are needed to understand the unique management requirements in cross-border contexts. For instance, a handful of the Council of Europe’s large-scale cultural routes include some Nordic countries, but are there local heroes, fairy tales or important historical events that could be used as themes to develop other cross-border heritage trails?

From a tourism perspective we know relatively little about national parks and other conservation areas that abut or overlap international boundaries in the far north. There are three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Nordic region that overlie international boundaries: the Wadden Sea (Denmark, Germany, Netherlands); the Struva Geodetic Arc (Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Moldova, Russia, Sweden and Ukraine); and the High Coast (Sweden) and Kvarken Archipelago (Finland). In addition, there are several cultural areas that transcend national borders, perhaps with Sápmi, the traditional home region of the Sami people, being the most prominent. Questions of transfrontier collaboration in managing natural and cultural resources, and the barriers against such, remain unanswered.

Examinations of cross-border shopping flows and their economic implications in non-traditional shopping areas are also lacking. Patterns of accessibility and proximity, differential pricing and merchandizing, as well as cognitive perceptions of what “Otherness” lies on the other side are all important variables that impact flows of shopping and other forms of tourism, even where supranationalism and other forms of integration have reduced much of the intrigue of crossing borders that used to exist (Prokkola, 2010). Day-trip travel and longer-term visits across state borders need more research attention in the far north, as they have received in other regions of Europe, North America and Asia.

Finally, there are many devolutionary movements occurring at the international scale that have major implications for territorial sovereignty, self-rule/autonomy and tourism. The recent Dutch decision to make most of its Caribbean territories full “countries” within the Kingdom of the Netherlands is a well-known example. There are several unique territories in the Nordic region that have a special status regarding their administration and autonomy – Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Svalbard and Åland (Grydehøj, 2010; Timothy, 2010; Viken, 2011). These unique situations and supra-state spaces with distinctive governance models in Northern Europe have clear consequences for tourism legal frameworks, management regimes, marketing, taxation and other related processes. Additional research is sorely needed about the repercussions of these sorts of geopolitical conditions and modes of governance on tourism. In addition, the idea that “borders are everywhere” (Balibar, 2002) challenges many of the traditional views of nation-state borders in tourism and highlights a need to understand borders beyond national peripheries only (Rumford, 2012) in international tourism, such as in relation to tourism enclaves, conservation areas or local and non-local access to natural resources (Saarinen, 2016; Sæþórsdóttir & Saarinen, 2016).

International borders and tourism are inseparable elements of human mobility in Northern Europe. The multitudinous relationships between them have been teased out and illustrated in this theme issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism. It is our hope that this special issue has raised more questions than it has answered, so that it will stimulate increased levels of much-needed empirical and theoretical research on the critical topic of borders and borderscapes in contemporary tourism studies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.