In the contemporary competition state, many peripheral regions are in decline. Tourism is increasingly considered as a savior for regions lagging behind. The EU has launched several programs with the ambition to stimulate growth and employment in peripheral areas which are used in tourism development projects. In this paper a longitudinal analysis of changes in Swedish tourism guest nights with an attempt to assess the spatial changes that have taken place in the light of this new regional tourism policy are carried out. The aim is to investigate if tourism and tourism policy contributes to level out disparities between regions. The analysis is based on statistics on Swedish guest nights, on employees in the accommodation sector and on EU funds. Although there are exceptions, the main findings indicate that the potential for creating sustainable rural tourism growth through tourism policy seems to be much less than the popular discourse suggests.