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Tourism scholars have looked on degrowth, non-growth and rightsizing debates (Hall, 2009) to emphasise the need for limits to growth and an alternative to existing developmental models. Degrowth debates challenge dominant discourses of development and modernity including sustainable development, and advocate on a transition from consumerism towards cooperative and circular economy to reduce inequalities and environmental impacts (Ludmark, Zhang and Hall, 2020). Although degrowth strategies have been criticised as very difficult to adopt and implement, it remains the challenge to reduce tourism experiences consumption and especially those involving air-transport (Prideaux and Pabel, 2020). For several authors, there is no other way in reducing carbon emissions and tourism’s contribution to global warming, than reducing non-essential air travel and thus degrowing tourism (Gössling, Hall, Peeters, and Scott (2010) as cited in Becken 2017; Sharpley, 2020). 

The aim of this research is to discuss discourses of a disputed tourist project in rural Sweden as communicated in mass media. More specifically, the research is examining the case of Sälen mountain resort and look on how the development process of a new international airport, inaugurated in 2020, was presented and debated in newspapers. The project was considered controversial with many proponents as well as opponents raising conflicting interests and points of view. To capture the public discourse, we have analysed newspapers articles, mainly from local papers, for the duration of the period from the announcement of the project in 2008 to the inauguration of the new airport in December 2019. Findings indicate that the development of an international airport was presented as hopeful and good. Pro-growth discourses around increasing numbers of international tourists and job generation, rurality and peripherality mitigation, or even of positive environmental impacts were evident in the media. Opposition on the other hand, came as debate articles and develops around tax-payers money, responsibility to future generations and environmental concerns. Discourses of weak and strong approaches and pro-growth vs degrowth become part of the discussion of the results to inform the theoretical framework of analysis.