Arctic Tourism Development with Regard to Legal Regulations and Environmental Protection

Arctic tourism develops very quickly and requires both changing of legal regulations and consid-ering environmental issues. The developing branch of services (significantly tourism) has became an important sector in the shaping of the budget of numerous countries worldwide. World-wide climate changes provide new possibilities of visiting remote countries with severe climate conditions. Global warming is particularly intense in the Arctic, where mean temperatures have recently risen twice as fast as in the rest of the world. A comprehensive set of regulations was recently developed to protect the wilderness of Arctic environment from the negative impact of tourism. The purpose of the paper is to present legal and organizational regulations connected with organization of tourist trips in the Arctic, based on the example of Svalbard area, American Arctic and Russian Arctic. There are described particularly legal regulations that concern cruise operators. These issues have been described based on literature studies, analysis of legal regulations and statistical data. The time range of the study is about 20 years. Also discussed are challenges of tourism as seen in the Northwest Passage, a historical challenge for many sailors and Russian Arctic tourism development. The issues of economic benefits, environmental protection and connections between tourism and climate conditions are presented. There is also a focus on weather enabling tourism in the Arctic. It can be said that new possibilities of visiting remote places with severe climate conditions (e.g. Arctic region) are opening due to global changes. It occurs mainly due to the reduced sea ice cover for longer periods of time, which facilitates tourist access and extends visitor seasons. It has been assumed that global climate change may lead to a shift of tourism demand to higher latitudes, creating additional opportunities for tourism in northern regions.