In December, millions of children – and not so children – write their letters for Santa Claus and send them to his home in Lapland. In Lapland there are also people who write their letters, but wishing for something completely different: that tourists stop coming looking for Santa Claus. Because few places reflect what tourism causes as well as Rovaniemi, the capital of the region.
And the locals are fed up.
Santa Claus’s city. Lapland is a Finnish region located near the Arctic Circle and its capital, Rovaniemi, is a small city of about 65,000 inhabitants. It is surrounded by nature, but what puts it on the map every winter season is the “Santa Claus Village”. Founded in 1985, the idea was to imitate something that Disney had been doing quite well for years: monetizing the illusion.
In fact, the country itself was the one that officially promoted Lapland as the true home of Santa Claus. And what was initially a decision to revitalize an area devastated by the Second World War (in fact, the population of Rovaniemi was residual until the mid-80s), ended up forming a huge snowball.
Burst. It is estimated that Santa Claus’s post office has received more than 15 million letters from 200 countries since it opened in 1985. In the busiest months, they receive 30,000 letters a day. But they don’t just receive letters: they also receive tourists. The “attraction” is open all year round, but it is during the busiest months (as Christmas approaches) when the number of tourists can exceed the local population by ten to one.
The busiest day is obviously the 23rd, as tourists want to see Santa Claus leave. And estimates are that Rovaniemi alone accounts for a third of the benefits of all tourism in Lapland, contributing some 400 million euros to the city. In fact, it is expected to increase by another 200 million annually over the next five years, something that motivates the opening of new hotels and more air connections, even in summer.
Doesn’t stop. Because, of course, that number of tourists must sleep somewhere and, although Rovaniemi is not very big and depends on that Christmas tourism, it also seeks to stop being stationary. For example, there is an airport expansion plan to add 1,000 square meters to the terminal, as well as projects to diversify the tourist offer beyond the Christmas season.
The plan is to develop adventure and wellness tourism in summer, taking advantage of the fact that they are surrounded by exotic nature and, thus, distribute the flow of visitors throughout the year. For context, it is estimated that more than 700,000 people visited the region in 2024. They are almost the same as those who visited Yucatán at its peak.
To the south is Rovaniemi and next to the airport is the village of ‘Santa’
Reviews. And what had to happen happened, something that many other cities around the world are experiencing: a huge influx of tourists that are disturbing the local population. Part of the complaints about this touristification of Lapland come from those who live all year round in Rovaniemi. Although hotels have been built and more are underway, they are not enough to accommodate so many tourists, which is why tourist apartments have a field day.
This causes a housing shortage and rising prices. They also lament the saturation of local infrastructure during these peak seasons (going to the market on one of those days must be… fun) and something deeper: the loss of cultural identity in the face of excessive commercialization. In fact, in September last year, a group of local activists organized demonstrations demanding measures to prevent uncontrolled tourist growth.
The city’s mayor himself acknowledged that something must be done to find balance, but that the financial gains are there. And both the Finnish Parliament and the Sami themselves published a guide in 2018 to promote more sustainable and ethical tourism.
And nature? Well, there is the other part of the cake and another reason for complaint for the locals. In a report by The Guardian, the data of an analysis is presented that shows how, around the most popular tourist spots in Lapland, huge green areas have been developed solely focused on tourism. They include parks, hotels, ski slopes, virtual reality experiences to see the northern lights out of season, and vacation homes.
In fact, they estimate that 15% of new urban developments in the region are related to tourism and that, over the past few years, 2.7 million square meters of nature have been consumed in a 10-kilometer radius with Rovaniemi in the center. Half of them are attributed directly to the tourism sector. But tourism is not the only threat.
Snowball. Speaking to the British media, a Sami reindeer herder (the local indigenous community that has been raising reindeer for generations) regrets that there is a set of factors (tourism, mining and logging) that is destroying the grazing areas, but it is a situation that is not going to stop, but will increase as if it were a snowball.
Taking into account that estimate of adding another $200 million in the short term to annual tourism, the Lapland regional council is already weaving a strategy to “grow resorts until they reach a critical mass in which the conditions for growth are so favorable that they attract more business and vitality to the area.”
Meanwhile, environmentalists and locals will continue to wonder what will happen to the cultural heritage of the Sami people when the wave of tourism finishes passing over them.
Images | Visit Rovaniemi, Ernmuhl
In WorldOfSoftware | “We do not want to be the Ibiza of the north”: the anti-tourism movement in Cantabria already mobilizes thousands of people
