It has never been regarded as a hospitable part of the world but now the polar region, and particularly the relatively accessible Svalbard Islands, is becoming a playground for the rich as climate change tourism takes off.

Spitzbergen, the best-known island in the archipelago, has become the Tenerife of the north with tourism second only to coalmining in the local economy.

Global warming has helped to boost this new tourism, taking the harsh edge off the environment and making the area increasingly attractive to holidaymakers. Watching TV traveller Michael Palin plant-ing a flag at the North Pole, as nonchalantly as if it were his back garden may also have whetted the appetite.

The incident involving the 50 Britons on the Alexey Maryshev 300 miles north of Norway may have been a reminder that Earth's wilder regions can still bite back.

Neveretheless, as glaciers melt into the Arctic Ocean, tour ships are able to reach areas previously inaccessible.

With the temperature in the Svalbards rising, they are taking advantage of summer with the sea freer of ice flows while the sun never sets.

Luxury liners took around 20,000 passengers ashore to various sites around Svalbard in 1997, but by 2004 that figure had risen to 40,000.

Ten years ago there were 35,000 visitors a year to Spitzbergen, the largest island, but last year there were 70,000 - with the number of British tourists rising threefold since 1997, from 815 to 2065 in 2004.

Discover the World offers tours which begin from Scotland, including a journey on the West Highland railway line to embark at Oban and sail up to Spitzbergen via the Faroes.

The beauty of the glacial formations, which cover 60% of the five main islands and 150 small ones, draw visitors in spite of temperatures still only tipping 6C on average in July.

The Scandinavian Tourist board tantalises potential holidaymakers on its website with talk of sightings of rare sea birds, reindeer, Arctic foxes, polar bears, seals, and toothed whales, such as the sperm whale and Indian porpoise.

Last April, Tory leader David Cameron made a two-day trip to the archipelago's glaciers to see the effects of climate change.

"Calving" of giant ice floes from glaciers is nothing new - the hazard of which the Alexey Maryshev fell foul predates climate change.

Dr Richard Hodgkins, a glaciologist at the University of Loughborough, who has studied the Svalbard glacier, said the area was a sensitive location and an early indicator of climatic changes. He said that since the 1930s the ice had thinned enormously.

"The small glaciers have been retreating consistently ever since they were observed," he said. "When it comes to sea level, some of these small glaciers are inconsequential in global terms, but they are indicative of what is happening on the large icecaps in Greenland and Canada."

Dr Jeff Ridley, climate scientist with the Met Office's Hadley Centre, said the melting glaciers and icecaps such as Svalbard were responsible for 0.3mm of the 2.2mm annual rise is sea levels.

Even before the birth of eco-tourism, Spitzbergen was more than just a bleak, wind-swept patch of rock. Coal mining is the major economic activity. The Norwegian state-owned coal company employs nearly 60% of the Norwegian population of Spitzbergen, runs many of the local services, and provides most of the local infrastructure.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a "doomsday" seedbank under construction on Spitzbergen.

The government of Norway will fund most of the £1.5m construction cost, while the Global Crop Diversity Trust will take responsibility for operating the facility.