Abstract Tourism has developed into an important field of economy in the northern sparsely populated areas of Finland. State bodies of different spatial scales continuously put efforts to foster tourism growth and tourism is viewed as a prosperous economic path for the future. The prevailing tourism development is resort-oriented, which has transformed rural geographies in the North. Critical tourism geography research highlights that such market-driven tourism development has negative social and environmental consequences. Thus, tourism change needs to be examined from a broader perspective than economic benefits alone. It is required that tourism economy serves people and not vice versa. To increase sustainability in destination localities, collective economic agency in destinations is encouraged in tourism research and development. To date, tourism research has tended to draw on multiple, often contradicting, theoretical perspectives in an attempt to clarify how collective agency in tourism destinations should be best organized in order to foster social justice and ecological sustainability. The aim of this thesis is to understand how sustainability can be facilitated through local economic relations in resort-oriented destination development contexts. Sustainability discussions in tourism research are advanced by drawing on economic geography and its critical takes. The thesis consists of three studies that each examine sustainability in tourism destinations from a different viewpoint. The thesis first examines how (un)sustainability currently manifests in local economic relations and then discusses what changes are required to move towards more sustainable tourism futures. Ethnographically oriented case studies and a contemporary variant of the grounded theory method enables approaching tourism economies from the perspective of everyday tourism realities. The empirical part of the research is conducted in the Ruka and Ylläs destinations in the Finnish North. Insights were gathered by semi-structured in-depth interviews with local tourism actors in 2012 and 2015. The study introduces a poststructural political economy approach to sustainability transformations in tourism destinations. The less growth-focused economic thinking that exists in destinations is brought to light. Tourism actors’ motives and aims can differ drastically from the rationales of growth-focused tourism destination development that dominate in networked tourism governance. Many of the tourism actors desire conservation of natural and cultural environment in destinations. This creates conflict between the coexisting tourism paths. In the thesis, it is argued that economic difference in tourism should not be conceptualized merely as a source of diversification of tourism supply and thus as beneficial for destination growth; it should be recognized as political agency in tourism economy. Tourism networking is already now often value-driven, and this needs to be encouraged. That is, transformative agency for tourism change can be gained and new tourism paths created also through incremental changes ‘from below’, not only via policy actions. To contribute to the critical (economic) geography research on social and economic change, this thesis highlights that it is central to understand not only what new economic futures look like but also how to work towards them in everyday politics. Although the alternative and critical voices are valuable as they accurately state a socially just view of how things ought to be, these voices may not be the best way to bring about a change. This is because power hierarchies are not easily recognized in everyday tourism work. Each actor interprets the social from their subjective point of view. Even actors with the most power can have personal experiences of powerlessness. Thus, to foster change, it is necessary to facilitate the transformation of the existing conflictual inter-group relations. Dialogical everyday politics could work as a means to foster understanding of different groups’ tourism realities and their mutual influence. Conflict could be regarded not solely as an innate feature of capitalist economic relations but also as moments where mutual understanding can be facilitated. This is a way to establish local economic relations that enable community building. Destination sustainability touches not only firm-level practices but the mode of economic organization in tourism destinations. The thesis highlights that to advance social justice and environmental sustainability in destinations, destination development and planning should account for the possibility for a less growth-focused destination development path. As alternative tourism paths do not, as a rule, depend on new, large-scale tourism construction, they would likewise not foster growth in international tourist numbers and air travel. This unconventional view on economic path creation is to be encouraged as it is better in line with climate change mitigation needs and critical sustainability theorizing. / Original papers The original publications are not included in the electronic version of the dissertation. Kulusjärvi, O. (2016). Resort-oriented tourism development and local tourism networks – a case study from Northern Finland. Fennia 194: 1, 3–17. https://fennia.journal.fi/article/view/41450 http://jultika.oulu.fi/Record/nbnfi-fe2019103136035 Kulusjärvi, O. (2017). Sustainable Destination Development in Northern Peripheries: A Focus on Alternative Tourism Paths. Journal of Rural and Community Development 12:2/3, 41–58. https://journals.brandonu.ca/jrcd/article/view/1466 http://jultika.oulu.fi/Record/nbnfi-fe2018051524148 Kulusjärvi, O. (accepted). Towards just production of tourism space via dialogical everyday politics in destination communities. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space.

El artículo que se presenta a continuación tiene como objetivo general Analizar los factores clave de éxito del destino de Lambayeque para desarrollar estrategias de marketing turístico. Para obtener información de ambas variables se utilizó una entrevista con enunciados que se podían calificar por la escala de Likert y también preguntas abiertas, por consiguiente, los entrevistados fueron los actores del sector turismo y hotelero de la región Lambayeque, el tipo de investigación es cualitativa. En cuanto a la metodología empleada, tuvo un nivel descriptivo, de tipo aplicada, no experimental. Porsu lado los resultados que se obtuvieron de las entrevistas, fue que, existe poco apoyo de las autoridades para promover el turismo, y a falta de ello, muchas empresas dedicadas alturismo, trabajan de manera individual y la clave del éxito de un destino es que trabajen todos en conjunto, ya que así se puede lograr un mayor turismo no solo nacional, si no también internacional. Lo que se menciona más dentro de las respuestas obtenidas, es quese debe trabajar mucho más con las redes sociales, para promover el turismo, ya que es una pieza fundamental para dar a conocer el potencial del departamento de Lambayeque. Finalmente, se realizó una propuesta en relación a las estrategias que se pueden emplear para mejorar el turismo en Lambayeque. / The article presented below has the general objective of analyzing the key success factorsof the Lambayeque destination to develop tourism marketing strategies. To get information on both variables, an interview was used with statements that could be qualified by the Likert scale and also open questions, therefore, the interviewees were theactors of the tourism and hotel sector of the Lambayeque region, the type of research is qualitative. Regarding the methodology used, it had a descriptive level, applied, not experimental. On the other hand, the results obtained from the interviews were that there is little support from the authorities to promote tourism, and in the absence of this, many companies dedicated to tourism work individually and the key to the success of a destination is Let everyone work together, since in this way greater tourism can be achieved, not only national, but also international. What is mentioned more within the responses obtained is that much more work must be done with social networks to promotetourism, since it is a fundamental piece to publicize the potential of the department of Lambayeque. Finally, a proposal was made regarding the strategies that can be used to improve tourism in Lambayeque.