This paper highlights the challenges of self-limitation, providing insights into how event sport participants relate to and act within limits. From a cultural degrowth perspective that advocates for the need to practice self-limitation and reduce environmental waste from economic activities, we examine how event participants perceive physical impacts on nature during two types of nature-based events in Jämtland, Sweden. Based on 50 semi-structured interviews, observations and photo-elicitation observations, the findings reveal the difficulties of adhering to limitations. Initially, the informants considered only trash or greenhouse gas emissions as impacts but were stunned to see photos of how impacts such as trail and soil erosion had gone beyond what they imagined. However, responsibility for limiting the effects tended to shift to others, particularly the event organisers. These two events present a paradox in tourism. The convivial idea of visiting nature collides with resource utilisation that heavily impacts the environment.

Concerns about the effects of climate change have led to an interest in identifying ways to foster sustainability transitions. In the Global North, a key approach is to eventually eliminate dependence on carbon emitting energy while moving towards renewable sources, including wind power. Since wind farms require vast amounts of land, inevitably this explains the presence of such installations in many rural regions. This situation has alarmed various stakeholders, including those involved in tourism, who see such developments as threats to idyllic notions of rurality and, by default, to the transformation of the countryside for visitor experiences. Through a series of case studies in rural Sweden, we explore the attitudes of tourists towards the presence of wind farms in the landscape. Overall, study respondents recognize the need for such installations since most accept the necessity to embark on sustainable energy transitions. In this way, they understand that many parts of rural Sweden are transforming into spaces where sustainable energy future must be negotiated. Ultimately, sustainability transitions lead to the rethinking of conventional perceptions around rural space and tourism. We suggest that geographical research on sustainability transitions in tourism should account for conceptions of rurality that involve assemblages of imagination, place framing, and power relations in sustainability transitions. This conceptualization is necessary for achieving just and sustainable energy futures.

In this study, we explore the role of women’s entrepreneurship in revitalizing the historic market district of Nazareth (Israel). This is a special context to examine the intersection of women’s entrepreneurship, tourism, and historic revitalization because of the complex geo-political, cross cultural, and community development setting. We examine the role of women through their practice of cultural tourism-oriented entrepreneurship and seek to understand factors motivating women to engage in such entrepreneurship, along with their unique contributions. We utilize a qualitative research approach and conducted semi-structured interviews, augmented by numerous site visits and participant observation. Findings reveal that respondents, along with their individual-level motivations, have a strong desire to act on behalf of all women as well as to contribute to the community at large. This study sheds light on the role that women play as bearers of specific craft traditions as well as their ability to provide a unique calming and stabilizing effect on the socio-economic environment through their venturing. Beyond Nazareth, this study offers insight into the relationship between tourism and the SDGs on gender equality (5), decent work and economic growth (8) and on building peace, justice and strong institutions (16).

THE HANSA European Cultural Route (hereafter THE HANSA) is among the oldest, largest, most well-organized and active Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe (CoE). Based on the shared heritage of the Hanseatic League, the nearly two hundred members of this route cultivate intercultural communication, cross-border cooperation, local self governance, commitment to the principles of democracy and sustainable development of Europe. With its active youth wing youthHANSA, the route engages young Europeans in acquiring and further developing the aforementioned principles and values. The highlight of the network is organization of the International Hanseatic Days – a massive festival organized every year since 1980 in various member cities, which is a celebration of common culture and heritage, as well as a political, economic and cultural forum. Overall, this is a highly valuable and appreciated network, dedicated to preservation and cultivation of important European heritage. 

Nature-based attractions in the Swedish mountains, as in other similar areas in the Nordic and Arctic countries, have experienced a rapid growth in visitors, causing enhanced environmental damage, crowding, and pressure on infrastructure, resources, residents, and other land-users. Increased nature-based tourism creates a range of challenges leading to a need to balance benefits and challenges of tourism on communities and nature. This chapter aims to raise contemporary tourism governance challenges in the Swedish subarctic mountains by providing examples of conflicts of interests and different goals and agendas grounded in recent changes. Based on empirical material from interviews and stakeholder meetings, the chapter highlights the existing multi-actor complexity, implications of changing visitor patterns, and tourism impacts and responsibilities in governing those impacts. We end by discussing sustainability priorities, the public sector’s role in tourism development, strategic planning, collaboration, and responsibilities facing subarctic mountain communities.

There is nowadays a growing scholarship examining the intersection of popular culture and tourism. Most of this literature reveals that much of this work is grounded in an optimistic predisposition about the positive effects that tourism induced by popular culture has for locales. This is mainly featured in the dominant management discourse that feeds an overly positive tone about the benefits of popular culture for tourism development. However, there is a less loud line of scholarship originated in critical social studies that views regional popular culture tourism contexts in a more nuanced way bearing dubious outcomes. To address these shortcomings, the purpose of this scoping review is to demarcate and establish the strategic role of popular culture in regional tourism development. We put forward that a holistic approach entails the comprehensive treatment and multi-level embeddedness of popular culture tourism into regional contexts, epitomised by their territorial capital. On this basis, we present the predominant themes shaping the discourse in the field of popular culture tourism by discerning its two primary disciplinary streams, namely management and critical studies. Next, implications are drawn for the sustainable territorial touristification of places by leveraging comprehensively the development of popular culture tourism in local communities.

User-generated content (UGC) created and distributed through social media and tourism-related websites provides potential travelers the opportunity to gain first-hand experiences about destination products and services. UGC is also of great value to tourism service providers. Since UGC represents customers' opinions and experience outcomes, potential problems, but also drivers behind customer delight can be identified. In this regard, also temporal changes regarding customer requirements can be determined. The aim of this paper is to identify how certain topic areas mentioned in UGC affect customer satisfaction, exemplarily analyzed for the Lake of Constance Region. Furthermore, potential temporal changes regarding customer satisfaction since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic will be examined. A sentiment analysis, topic detection and regression analysis are carried out on two datasets containing UGC before and after the outbreak of the pandemic. Findings show that the pandemic has changed customers' attitudes towards certain topic areas.

This paper discusses the results of regular evaluations of two Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme – Follow the Vikings (focusing on the heritage of the Vikings) and THE HANSA (featuring the heritage of the Hanseatic League). These evaluations are conducted by the author as a commissioned independent expert in 2022 and 2023. Geographically both of these routes are located primarily in the Northern and Central Europe. Historically, the routes refer to the early medieval and late medieval periods, with frequent overlaps in terms of geographic locations and touristic representations. The data is gathered through field visits, observations, interviews and a survey among the route representatives. Following the discussions within heritage and tourism studies, theoretically this paper critically discusses the production of heritage through/for tourist routes. Additionally, it reflects on the challenges of the top-down route development as a way to achieve political goals of European transboundary cooperation enhancement  - with tourism being its key ‘driver’ and expected outcome. The results of the evaluation demonstrate the challenging realities of bringing a tourist route to life through top-down initiatives, while the difference between geographical routes, cooperation networks and digital storytelling becomes blurred. Additionally, the impact of a route branding on the tourism development and tourist decision making remains questionable.

This chapter focuses on environmental leveraging of sport event portfolios, which has been an under researched area of event studies. By looking at the case of the Swedish city of Östersund, this chapter argues that strategic planning of event portfolios can lead to numerous environmental benefits, but there are also obstacles that must be overcome to achieve environmental goals. It is crucial to have effective communication, collaboration, and support for smaller events to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by sport event portfolios. To fully realize the potential of sport events in promoting environmental sustainability there is a need for development of common language on environmental sustainability, agreement on environmental standards and measurements, as well as strategic collaboration among stakeholders. 

Tourism managers are increasingly turning to the online sphere to gain relevant customer insights. However, current approaches to analyzing vast and rapidly changing user-generated content (UGC) face several limitations. Supervised approaches require significant effort to provide pre-tagged training data and cannot dynamically identify topics mentioned in UGC. On the other hand, unsupervised approaches typically do not support different abstraction levels or enable a successive refinement of analysis in a drill-down manner, which is often expected as a practical requirement of tourism and destination management. Our research objective is, therefore, to extend current supervised approaches for identifying predefined topics by adopting unsupervised approaches using cluster analysis. The results emphasize that unsupervised approaches can (1) detect non-predefined topics dynamically with an accuracy similar to supervised approaches, thus demonstrating the potential to replace them and avoid the necessity of providing pre-tagged training data. (2) To build a topic hierarchy, unsupervised approaches sense more fine-grained topics as an enhancement of predefined topics on a lower level of abstraction, enabling more powerful drill-down-like analyses. Overall, the proposed extended approach to topic detection promises to support tourism management by meaningfully analyzing the increasing mass of visitors’ online feedback. 

Despite the growing popularity of outdoor recreation, nature is not equally accessible to everyone. In the case of persons with disabilities, access to nature remains a largely under-researched area, especially in terms of the role of private and public providers of products and facilities for a diverse range of visitors. This study investigates the challenges and opportunities for developing inclusive forms of accessible nature-based tourism in three different natural settings in Sweden. By focusing on the supply-side of nature-based tourism, we examine views and practices in providing inclusive activities and environments. Despite growing stakeholder interest in accessible nature-based tourism, our findings reveal several challenges, including limited knowledge about the consumers, lack of financial resources and long-term planning, and the absence of a holistic accessibility perspective. We discuss these challenges and propose that they can be collectively met through increased stakeholder collaboration for creating accessible nature-based tourism.

Evenemang blir en allt vanligare reseanledning och passar vårt sätt att resa; flera gånger per år, men kortare i tid. Allt fler väljer att besöka evenemang, både som deltagare och som åskådare. En stadigt växande efterfrågan och ett ökat utbud förstärks av rådande trender inom hälsa och livsstil.

Ökningen av evenemang skapar glädje och gemenskap samt möjligheter genom ökad sysselsättning och tillväxt, men innebär också en ökad belastning på miljön. Inte sällan återfinns evenemang i känsliga miljöer i mer eller mindre perifera lägen, men även evenemang i stadsmiljöer påverkar miljön på olika sätt.

Det är viktigt men svårt att mäta miljöeffekter av evenemang. De många tänkbara perspektiven kopplat till tid, geografi och aktörer gör att öppenhet och transparens är av största vikt. Stort fokus har legat på negativa miljöeffekter av evenemang, men rätt planerat och genomfört kan evenemang också bidra till att driva en rörelse i mer hållbar riktning. Utöver de miljömässiga effekterna är det angeläget att dessutom väga in ekonomiska och sociala aspekter.

Syftet med guiden är att ge en snabb och populärvetenskaplig introduktion till miljömässiga effekter av evenemang - centrala begrepp och perspektiv. Guiden har framställts av forskare på ETOUR vid Mittuniversitetet

Aktörer och beslutsfattare på statlig, regional, kommunal och destinationsnivå, behöver veta vad evenemangen man stöder betyder för samhället. Kunskap om evenemangseffekter är viktig för att bestämma hur man bör förhålla sig till nuvarande och framtida evenemang. Inte minst efterfrågas de ekonomiska effekter som evenemang förväntas bidra med, då dessa ofta ligger till grund för synen på stöd, finansiering och samhällsnytta.

Syftet med guiden är att ge en snabb och populärvetenskaplig introduktion till turismekonomiska utvärderingar av evenemang så att de som beställer, utför, eller läser utvärderingar, får en översikt över de viktigaste frågorna att ställa för att kunna säkerställa att utvärderingen i fråga är ändamålsenlig. Guiden har framställts av forskare på ETOUR vid Mittuniversitetet. 

Renewable energy technologies are expanding in rural landscapes, where they are changing the character and meaning of place. This study explores the experience of living and recreating in proximity to landscapes undergoing this development, namely in a Swedish municipality where a major wind park is located. Using place attachment, it addresses how people construct meaning around places of everyday life through stories of their experience of place. Results show that individuals form coherent narratives of the past, present and future of places undergoing transformation. Stories of experiences of renewable energy technology and their impact on landscape relate to persisting feelings of rootedness, changing land-use activities and hope for a sustainable future. Place attachments are a form of social action as their formulation enables people to deal with change and embrace discourses of sustainability. Results highlight the discourses and practices that rural dwellers adopt in the wake of renewable energy transitions. 

In this case study we illustrate the interplay of social-ecological factors and uncontrollable processes in an event context. We focus on trail running, the popularity of which is on the rise, and scrutinise the case of a nature-based event – the mountain trail running marathon Fjällmaraton in Sweden. We introduce pedagogical and theoretical perspectives of new materialism and the Anthropocene, building on the ontological stance of hybridity of social-cultural systems. To understand the role of events as active agents of the Anthropocene we focus on infrastructure and feral effects. By looking at the unintended consequences, we discuss the limitations of managerial frameworks, unable toaccount for processes beyond the control of event planners, entangled in the complex social-ecological systems.

Popular culture tourism encompasses a range of expressive practices that attract fans traveling to destinations associated with their fandom pursuit. However, scholarship on this multifaceted phenomenon is today over-fragmented and obscured by separate disciplinary agendas and priorities. We argue that the scope and breadth of popular culture tourism calls for its interdisciplinary treatment as a distinct field. Through a scoping literature review, this paper identifies the foundational elements of its conceptual and ontological roots, extracting key insights and discursive themes that can help establish a comprehensive perspective on the study and management of popular culture tourism. Our inquiry builds common ground that can shed light on the complexity of popular culture expressions and enable their strategic role as a destination placemaking tool. Thematic areas of convergence resulting in the emergent configuration of the field are delineated, and primary research questions for the comprehensive study of popular culture tourism are outlined.

This chapter discusses approaches to do foresights in outdoor recreation and tourism in nature, based on research from the Nordic countries. This region has a long-standing reputation for promoting outdoor recreation, with associated policies aiming to support this tradition for the benefit of future generations and environmental engagement. To do so successfully, one key input is improving the knowledge of outdoor recreational participation, associated trends, and future development. In this chapter, we therefore review different monitoring approaches to trend analyses as a means of forecasting participation and discuss supplementary approaches to foresight in outdoor recreation. We operationalize the Nordic context through studies undertaken in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Our examination shows that the tradition of national surveys and on-site visitor monitoring has proven effective. However, contemporary changes in society call for additional approaches to better understand future outdoor recreation. We therefore share experiences from several different approaches to foresight in outdoor recreation. This will inform future research as well as managers, entrepreneurs, planners and policymakers in their decision-making.

In extraordinary situations, like the Covid-19 pandemic, irregular demand fluctuations can hardly be predicted by traditional forecasting approaches. Even the current extent of decline of demand is typically unknown since tourism statistics are only available with a time delay. This study presents an approach to benefit from user generated content (UGC) in form of online reviews from TripAdvisor as input to estimate current tourism demand in near real-time. The approach builds on an additive time series component model and linear regression to estimate tourist arrivals. Results indicate that the proposed approach outperforms a traditional seasonal naïve forecasting approach when applied to a period of extraordinary demand fluctuations caused by a crisis, like Covid-19. The approach further enables a real-time monitoring of tourism demand and the benchmarking of tourism business in times of extraordinary demand fluctuations. 

Denna text är skriven inom ramen för Mistra Sport & Outdoors som är ett forsknings- och samverkansprogram för att skapa kunskap och lösningar för ökad miljömässig hållbarhet inom idrott och friluftsliv. Föreliggande rapport är en del av kunskapsuppbyggnaden kring hållbar användning av mark och vatten. Syftet med denna text är att sammanfatta forskningsläget vad gäller rekreationens negativa påverkan på naturmiljön i den svenska fjällkedjan.   

Överlag finns relativt få forskningsstudier om störningar och miljöpåverkan från friluftsliv och naturbaserad turism i svenska fjällkedjan. Generellt kan sägas att forskningen har fokuserat på direkt påverkan, till exempel markslitage från vandring och cykling samt på störning på renar. Generell kunskap om skoteråkningens utsläpp finns, men få studier behandlar specifikt effekterna i svenska fjällen. Sammanställningen av tidigare forskning visar också att det finns kunskapsluckor och därför kan rapporten även utgöra utgångspunkt för framtida forskningsstudier.

Den här rapporten vänder sig till aktörer med intresse för rekreation och miljöfrågor i svenska fjällen. Rapporten kan utgöra underlag i strategi-, planerings- och förvaltningsarbete. 

Jämtland in Northern Sweden is one of the most tourism and eventintense regions in the country. The rise in volume of events in alpine and subarctic nature environments, and the subsequent increase in participants, requires closer scrutiny of the environmental impacts.The region is characterised by mountains, forests and a sensitive ecological environment, and shared by several land users. With this study, we aim to gain in-depth knowledge of how environmental impacts are understood and valued in the regional assessment process for nature-based events and organised outdoor recreation.We analyse permit documents from the County Administrative Board of Jämtland from 2011 to 2020. The results show that most events were approved, and none were rejected solely due to environmental concerns. Assessments were instead balanced against other considerations, such as local development and economic gains. We argue that these priorities make nature a commercial arena for events, visitors and recreationists. This paper sheds light on human use and the associated environmental effects that further increase the pressure on nature. We end with managerial implications and propose that the permit process can be improved and integrated into spatial planning.

This study is the first research output coming out from a newly launched project on Recreational mobility and trails in mountain destinations: Understanding Behavioural insights and New technology in relation to funding systems for high quality trails in a Swedish context, funded by the Swedish KK-foundation. The overall purpose is to analyse prerequisites for funding and management of trails as part of developing nature-based tourist destinations. This specific study looks at the challenge of understanding the consumer behaviour of tourists when it comes to the decision to contribute to trail funding by buying a trail pass and to understand if and how context of resort ownership, other visitors’ behaviour and the social norm, matters for the decision. With a quantitative approach and 346 filled in surveys we are sharing lessons learnt hwo to measure actual behaviour towards criticial questions.

Overtourism has become a major issue of concern in many popular venues, including several cities like Barcelona. In this study, in order to better comprehend reactions towards overtourism, we analyze the perceptions of residents who regularly shop at Barcelona's La Boqueria towards the growing crowds of tourists who visit the same venue. The study aims to acknowledge the evolution over time of locals' aversion or support regarding the touristification of their food market and to determine whether or not overtourism regulations that were implemented by Barcelona's city government had an impact on these attitudes. Thus, we undertook a sequential explanatory mixed-method approach (beginning with a quantitative approach and ending with a qualitative one) spanning the period 2015 to 2019. First, within the quantitative study, structural equation modeling results suggest that place identity observed through community attachment and resident place image has no direct statistically significant effect on residents' support for tourism development in La Boqueria. However, when mediated by tourism's perceived benefits and costs, these variables were recognized as statistically significant antecedents of support for La Boqueria's touristification. Secondly, we complemented and further elaborated on the quantitative findings through in-depth interviews with local residents who shop at La Boqueria but also by utilizing available secondary data to reveal if there were any significant changes in locals' perception of touristification, especially following the adoption of the city's overtourism regulations. We conclude that residents' support for tourism development of La Boqueria as a public resource is strongly associated with their perception of place identity (both place image and community attachment) as well as expected benefits and associated costs.

 Heritage tourism scholars have used notions of performativity and affectto study the ways tourists actively construct and assign meaning to theirexperience of heritage. However, these concepts remain under-exploredin the context of personal heritage tourism. Personal heritage tourismreflects an interest to experience a heritage of personal affectiverelevance, acknowledging that perceptions of heritage are fluid andsubjective. I contribute insight into the conceptualization of personalheritage tourism by exploring the performances and affectiveentanglements that make genealogy meaningful in the present duringtravels to an ancestral homeland. Through a qualitative study ofSwedish-American ancestral tourists, I propose that processes ofmeaning making in ancestral tourism include enacting the family,partaking in everyday life, and connecting with mundane physicalelements of the past. These performances unfold at sites historical andcurrent in the ancestral homeland. Personal heritage tourism thus findsmeaning though affective entanglements with the past, but alsothrough social interactions and mundane activities based in a familiarpresent. These affective entanglements occur at different locations, notall directly connected to the personal past. 

 Natural and cultural diversity is gaining wider global recognition as the key to sustainable development. This article looks at the challenges of conserving marine biocultural diversity by investigating the unique heritage of marine salmon fisheries througha case study of a small group of marine fisheries in Norway, still fishing for Atlanticsalmon Salmo salar L. Tight relationships between declining natural resources anddaily struggles to keep cultural heritage alive are highlighted through theoretical perspectives of social identity and local ecological knowledge. The theoretical lens ofsocial identity contributes to better understanding tensions between scientific andlocal knowledge by bringing forward social categorisation, polarisation and power relations as drivers of conflicts. Involvement of local communities and respect for theircultural heritage, knowledge and practices can assist in more effective managementand governance of multifunctional biocultural landscapes, and contribute to their resilience and adaptability. 

We present a novel, global 30 arc seconds (similar to 1 km at the equator) population projection dataset covering each year from 2010 to 2100 that is consistent with both country level population and gridded urban fractions from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6). While IPCC population projections until 2100 are available at country level for Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs), land cover (including the urban fraction) is only available for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). To perform simulations of e.g., future supply and demand for agricultural products, fine scale projections of population density are needed for combinations of SSPs and RCPs. Therefore, we generated a 30 arc seconds dataset consistent with both SSPs and RCPs within the framework of the IPCC. This data set is useful in applications where spatially explicit projections of aspects of global change are investigated at a fine spatial scale. For example, if a link function between night-time lights and population density is found based on current satellite images and recent population density data, a projection of night-time light lights can be generated by using this link function with our projected population density. Such a projection can for example be used to evaluate the potential for future light pollution. 

Conclusions: 

• Older adults are at high risk for disengagement from outdoor recreation

• Suggested core features to promote outdoor recreation: person-centeredness, promoting functioning, addressing self-ageism, providing environmental support, promoting subjective mobility needs, adaptation (new ways to engage)

• Opportunities for sectors and private companies: potential to develop and expand services to an increasingly larger group of older people 

Background: The advantages of sustained health and well-being in old age may be reduced by disengagement from outdoor recreation. We present a rationale for how the public sector, the third sector and private companies can promote continued engagement in outdoor recreation.

Methods:  Empirical data from (i) older adults through a quantitative survey and semi-structured interviews, (ii) sector representatives and private companies through semi-structured interviews, (iii) older adults, sector representatives and private companies through a workshop. 

Results: Outdoor recreation was considered important to maintain physical fitness, psychological wellbeing, identity, and daily routines. More than 50 percent of survey respondents had disengaged from activities previously performed due to health decline, too demanding activities, or social loss. Continued engagement was considered important but challenging. To improve services for different needs and preferences in outdoor recreation, sector representatives and private companies highlighted: Knowledge and support on how to design accessible activities and natural environments and increased financial resources for accessibility.  

A paradigm is usually defined as an established way of doing things. From a scientific point of view, a paradigm is the framework that guides the methodological choices of a researcher, such as decisions regarding the view on reality, the production of knowledge as well as values. From a more practical point of view, a paradigm dictates a certain way of managing tourism growth and visitor flows, among other things. Paradigms can have different approaches to both research and management, from approaches that are more quantitative in nature and based on positivist philosophy, to more qualitative and subjective approaches such as constructionism and postmodernism. Paradigms can be seen as a limitation to research, but instead should be seen as a map. Both research and practice can benefit from a set of principles that ensure that the decisions taken are coherent.

Nostalgia is an important aspect of tourism both as a push as well as a pull factor for visitors around the world. Nostalgia is often described as a ‘longing for the past’ and can be influenced by past experience and age (Cho, Joo and Chi, 2019, p. 97). Nostalgia is a common theme in tourism, especially as a motivator for certain segments. For instance, nostalgia is prevalent as a travel catalyst in sport tourism (Cho et al., 2019) and as a strong motivator for older and younger segments of seniors (Cleaver et al., 1999; Daniels et al., 2019; Patterson, 2006). Nostalgia was identified 40 years ago as an important motivator for senior tourists’ travel (Guinn, 1980), yet it has been argued that still it is not common in research (Otoo and Kim, 2020).

This paper reports on an innovative, bottom-up effort (Projekt Kaxås) to attract lifestyle migrants to the rural Swedish village of Kaxås. This study is situated against the broader backdrop of population and out-migration from many of Sweden’s rural communities. The experience of Kaxås is unique in that, at the time of this writing, the population of the village is growing. Study findings suggest that social dimensions such as solidarity and hospitality were critical factors in shaping the decision for families to relocate to Kaxås. Findings from this study can inform similar efforts that are currently underway in rural communities in Sweden and throughout Europe. 

The study of tourism marketing communication is an important aspect that contributes to the understanding of how destinations and locals are portrayed. Through the so-called circle of representation, images can spread from tourism marketing to other media, such as tourism photography. Marketing material in the form of 118 brochures, 3000 Instagram posts and a guidebook portraying the Sami population mostly in Swedish Lapland, but also in Finnish Lapland as well as Finnmark, Norway, have been collected and analyzed. The focus is on pictorial and textual elements and eight previously conceptualized themes have been used to guide the analysis. The focus was on the portrayal of the Sami Indigenous population. The materials were collected through a direct qualitative content analysis and analyzed through a multimodal discourse analysis. The results show that there is still a tendency to portray the Sami based on exoticism. This can spread to different media channels, but there are also discrepancies that hint at a gradual change in how Indigenous populations such as the Sami are presented. The results of this study show the potential for the use of social media channels such as Instagram for Indigenous entrepreneurs and destination management organizations to educate, attract and entice potential visitors.

This work emerges from the encouragement of peace studies scholars to seek out commonalities that can unite rival sides in a conflict. Based on this call, I propose the unifying approach to peacebuilding through tourism as one where tourism initiatives use unifying points (such as figures, sites, stories and symbols) that help conflicting sides see commonalities and thus facilitate cross-cultural understanding. In particular, I look at how the story of Abraham (communal father of Jews, Christians and Muslims) appears to be used as a guiding fiction for the work of two tourism initiatives in Israel and Palestine. Based on mixed qualitative data, I use Creative Analytic Practice to present two semi-fictional stories that explore this use of Abraham, exposing the potential benefits and risks associated with striving for a unifying peace in an arena as charged as the Israeli-Palestinian context. These stories reveal that the unifying approach provides a valuable vocabulary of progress that challenges the dominant sectarian narratives of tourism in the region, yet simultaneously rubs awkwardly against the sharp divisions and imbalances of the Israeli-Palestinian context.

This handbook presents cutting-edge and global insights on sustainable heritage, engaging with ideas such as data science in heritage, climate change and environmental challenges, indigenous heritage, contested heritage and resilience. It does so across a diverse range of global heritage sites.

Organized into six themed parts, the handbook offers cross-disciplinary perspectives on the latest theory, research and practice. Thirty-five chapters offer insights from leading scholars and practitioners in the field as well as early career researchers. This book fills a lacuna in the literature by offering scientific approaches to sustainable heritage, as well as multicultural perspectives by exploring sustainable heritage in a range of different geographical contexts and scales. The themes covered revolve around heritage values and heritage risk; participatory approaches to heritage; dissonant heritage; socio-environmental challenges to heritage; sustainable heritage-led transformation and new cross-disciplinary methods for heritage research.

This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars in heritage studies, archaeology, museum studies, cultural studies, architecture, landscape, urban design, planning, geography and tourism.

The Baltic Sea coast is a primary recreation and tourism space for both the Swedish population and incoming tourists, not least from neighbouring countries. Depending on the geographical preconditions, activities in the littoral zone comprise both typical beach activities and boating, and bohemian lifestyle. Second homes are a common form of accommodation, attracting Swedes to the shore during summer and wintertime. 

It is widely recognized that food consumption is a key contributor to climate change, making up around a third of emissions in developed countries. Tourism and hospitality, which accounts to around 8% of global greenhouse gas emission, is of high relevance in food consumption. Nudging or “boosting” consumers to choose more sustainable food and beverage options would be one way to reduce the industry's overall climate footprint. Field experiments in a natural setting provide the ultimate test to examine if such interventions could have the intended “boosting” effect. However, conducting a successful field experiment involves several challenges. Engaging the company partner is one key challenge where scientific quality criteria as well as practical and business-related issues in the implementation of the experiment must be understood and negotiated. Through two initial workshops using Open Space and Design Thinking as facilitating workshop methods, more methodologically valid and practically effective behavioural interventions have been identified. Two restaurants serve as case in our study and restaurant staff, managers and researchers participated in the workshops. Our findings so far, show that staff knowledge on sustainable food as well as on guest satisfaction are key factors for the implementation of the field experiments. Results from this study will have practical implications for tourism providers aiming to trigger more sustainable behaviour. Further, this study advances knowledge on the challenges and opportunities food service providers in tourism face in offering more climate-friendly choices to their customers.

Artificial turf is widely used as a playing surface for many sports, including football. In Sweden the use of artificial turf allows people to play football in regions where the climate would otherwise prevent it, and is seen as a positive development from a football perspective. However, the widespread use of artificial turf pitches comes at a cost, with microplastic pollution a prime example. The integration of environmental sustainability in the management of artificial turf is dependent on a number of factors, including a complex policy terrain, which includes different kinds of policies over several policy levels. The purpose of this paper is to investigate barriers that prevent actors within artificial turf, who are generally positive towards sustainable practices, from acting in accordance with their intentions. Therefore, the value-action gap is chosen as a frame of refence to interpret semi-structured interviews with actors managing and using artificial turf. Sportification is also an important concept, since football, and organized sport in general, has a very important role in driving the proliferation of artificial turf pitches. The results compare the view of practitioners and users, describing a number of contextual obstacles to integrating environmental sustainability in artificial turf pitch management and usage. In addition, this study also identifies a number of technical and procedural improvements, and makes recommendations to provide practitioners with ways of improving their work with artificial turf pitches. 

A multifarious relationship exists between cultural tourism and SMSTs. As early as the 19th Century, several SMSTs (especially in Europe) began transforming their cultural heritage into tourism attractions. Recently, communities worldwide have focused increasingly on cultural tourism as a strategy to cope with economic restructuring and major (geo)political changes. Despite these phenomena, few academics have explored the role and the dynamics of cultural tourism in SMTSs. Moreover, there is a tendency in many such communities to uncritically borrow approaches from larger cities without paying attention to spatial and historical contingencies, which may lead to widely divergent outcomes. In this chapter, we describe the transformation in recent decades of SMSTs into cultural tourist destinations digging into literature primarily from urban studies and tourism research. Although several best-practice examples exist, there are also many more instances of failure that can be explained because of factors such as varying accessibility levels, divergent governance systems, or different levels of innovation to name but a few. While several communities struggle to establish themselves as bona fide destinations, others have been experiencing the uncomfortable situation of being loved to death by too many visitors. Indeed, there are several SMSTs that have been overwhelmed by overtourism. The global pandemic of 2020-21 has exposed the vulnerability of many communities, which depend on tourism as a major driver of economic growth and has led observers to ponder whether we have arrived at a metaphorical fork on the tourism development road. We ask whether this is an opportunity to rethink the role of cultural tourism towards engendering a more resilient and, ultimately, sustainable approach for the development of such communities.

The impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on firms’strategic development and value creation has been a topic of academic debatefor decades. Tourism is no exception. This chapter provides a synthesis ofthe literature on the strategic decision to adopt and use ICTs as well as ananalysis of their impact on the value creation of tourism firms. We reflecton theoretical frameworks and analytical concepts developed and validated bytourism scholars, their implications for ICT use, and the factors affecting therealization of ICT-enhanced business value. Problems of measurement, analysis,and organizational adjustments appear as major factors behind volatile ICTproductivity in tourism, known as the ICT Productivity Paradox. To ensure the realization of ICT-enhanced business value, various adjustment strategies,including the development of firms’ capabilities, cultures, and organizationalstructures, are addressed. The discussion section critically assesses the reviewedliterature on the strategic use of ICTs in tourism. Finally, the conclusion deducesresearch needs and sketches an agenda for future research.

This comprehensive Handbook offers a broad assessment of tourism impacts research. With critical perspectives on social and environmental impacts of the sector it addresses the often-clashing value systems in tourism that underpin both scholarly and policy agendas. Chapters offer reflections on critical issues, including climate change, environmental degradation and COVID-19, analysing their effects on tourism impacts. Top scholars in the field flesh out unique perspectives on tourism, highlighting its impact on communities, workers and Indigenous peoples, as well as the ongoing global and local sustainability issues associated with the prevailing growth-oriented rationale of the industry. Providing a state of the art, integrative approach to the field, the Handbook lays out a social impact assessment approach and draws attention to the relationships between tourism, human rights, development and the environment. Offering innovative insights on the future of the industry, the Handbook of Tourism Impacts is crucial reading for students and scholars of tourism, human geography and planning, as well as other social scientists working on tourism impacts. It also provides useful insights for practitioners and policymakers looking to address and limit the negative impacts of tourism. 

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are important spatial elements providinghumans with recreational, aesthetic, spiritual and other benefits. Yet, because of their immaterial, subjective, qualitative and unmeasurable nature, this means that scientists,decision-makersand general public oftenfind their value difficult to grasp. Weenrich the CES approach with theoretical insights from humanistgeography, where we frame CESas arising from perpetual interactions between humans and their environment.Places are formed through various processes, both organic and planned, which endow people with unique identities, experiences, capabilities, knowledge and skills.We use the rural wetland area of Lake Hornborga, Sweden, with its complex history of restoration phases, to explore theprofound interrelations betweenenvironmental spaces and cultural practices expressed in the everyday activities of learning, playing, creating, caring, producing, and consuming. The data was collected through qualitative methods, including interviews, observations and a focused group interview, in order to capture these unique senses and experiences. The findings outline CES as key drivers behind the formation of place, rather than mere labels for inventoryingbenefits people receive from nature. The presence of the iconic migratory crane is especially conducive to a positive sense of place and the practice of various activities, including tourism, around the wetland. We frame the implications for planning and future research of our findings within a context of ethics.

Evenemangsbranschen kopplad till Sveriges idrotts- och friluftsliv har påverkats kraftigt av pandemin. I det korta perspektivet har tusentals människors jobb och fritid påverkats då aktiviteter uteblivit och evenemang ställts in. De långsiktiga konsekvenserna kan leda till en förändrad syn på hur man i framtiden kommer attresa, delta i evenemang och använda arenor. Detta får i sin tur konsekvenser förmiljön.Danna rapport beskriver och analyserar studier gjorda under 2020 för att bättreförstå vilka effekter inställda evenemang har gett upphov till, men också huruvida det finns något i pandemin som kan bidra till mer hållbara evenemang. Studierna utgår från frågorna hur arrangörer och konsumenter påverkas av pandemin, hur alternativa evenemangslösningar kan uppstå och hur erfarenheterna kantillvaratas efter pandemin. Rapporten bygger dels på tidigare forskning, dels på en enkät som skickats ut av Riksidrottsförbundet till samtliga anslutna föreningar våren 2020 (n=3 513), och på en enkät som Visit Stockholm och Göteborg & Co skickade till svensk allmänhethösten 2020 (n=3 159). En stor del av idrottsutövandet i Sverige sker i organiserad form i någon av landets idrottsföreningar. För föreningarna och utövandet är evenemang centrala, och uppemot 90 procent av alla intäkter som föreningarna förlorat under pandemins förstavåg kan kopplas till uteblivna evenemang. Det är givetvis en varierande grad av intäktsbortfall, men hårdast drabbade i ekonomiska termer är ishockeyn och fotbollen.De största intäktsbortfallen vid uteblivna evenemang kan kopplas till anmälningsavgifter, biljettintäkter, sponsormedel och försäljning. Men, det blir också tydligt att det finns påtagliga negativa effekter som inte i första hand rörekonomi.Vanliga icke-ekonomiska effekter är medlemstapp, liksom att färre aktiviteterleder till ökad fysisk och psykisk ohälsa, försämrad integration samt att idrotteninte längre får samma möjlighet att sprida glädje och gemenskap. Föreningarna framhåller behoven av ekonomiskt stöd men efterfrågar också stödbehov kopplat till att tolka riktlinjer, driva enskilda frågor gentemot iimyndigheter och andra, förnya evenemangen och inte minst hjälp medmarknadsföring i tider när evenemangen startar upp igen.Enkäten som under hösten riktades till den svenska allmänheten visar att mångakände sig negativt påverkade av inställda evenemang och ansåg att deras livskvalitet påverkats negativt.

Evenemang ligger nära livsstil för många besökare och i rapporten diskuteras begreppet serious leisure där evenemang konstateras påverka människors vardag före, under och efter själva evenemanget.De flesta respondenter anser att digitala evenemang inte helt kan ersätta de evenemang där man träffas fysiskt. Dock anger var femte respondent att digitala evenemang helt eller delvis kan vara ett fullgott alternativ för framtiden vilket är en stor framtida utmaning och möjlighet både kommersiellt och miljömässigt. Pandemin har ökat medvetenheten om trygghet och säkerhet. I rapporten konstateras att det finns en rad åtgärder som arrangörer kan vidta för att möta besökares oro och farhågor. Utöver handsprit, närvarande publikvärdar och annatefterfrågas också större avstånd till andra besökare. Detta kan innebära en utveckling med fler evenemang men med färre besökare.Studien synliggör miljömässiga effekter där det kortsiktigt blivit ett minskat elleruteblivet resande på grund av inställda evenemang. Relativt få arrangörer harjobbat med att anpassa sina evenemang till distansoberoende genom exempelvis streaming eller andra digitala tjänster. På längre sikt konstateras dock pandeminkunna leda till att hela eller delar av evenemang anpassas till ett digitalt format,vilket kan innebära minskat resande och minskad miljöbelastning. Det kan ocksåleda till ett ändrat användande av den infrastruktur som kopplas till evenemang,exempelvis minskat eller ändrat beroende av arenor. Sammantaget kan det konstateras att miljöfrågorna får står tillbaka under enbrinnande kris som en pandemi utgör. Fokus ligger på verksamheternas överlevnad, akuta åtgärder och uthållighet. Men såväl direkt som indirekt kanpandemin påverka svenskars evenemangsbeteende. Detta ändrade beteende kan isin tur påverka miljön både direkt och indirekt. Mer kunskap på området är nödvändig på väg mot målet och mer hållbara evenemang

In this chapter we look at the role of nature in cultural events, and the role of event design in facilitating holistic experiences of nature and culture. Throughout history, human cultures have drawn inspiration from nature, and cultural events, such as community festivals, were inseparably linked to natural processes, life cycles and other manifestations of natural phenomena. Even though nature is routinely described as one of the main attractions in tourism and event sectors, it is rarely studied directly, especially in event studies. We base our study on the theoretical insights from the fields of event studies and nature-based tourism and outdoor recreation.  Empirically, our case is based on Norway, which currently experiences rapid growth in tourism flows as well as proliferation of a wide variety of outdoor events in its scenic natural landscapes. The empirical data comes from interviews with outdoor event managers as well as a visual analysis of the websites of cultural events in nature.

Exclusively planned tourism destinations have increased substantially over the last decades. As a result, gated leisure communities, all-inclusive resorts, private cruise liner-owned island and other tourism enclaves are rather common features in tourism, especially in the peripheries and low- and middle-income countries. Tourism enclaves can have varied characteristics and scales of operations but typically they involve standardized ‘non-local’ themes or appeal in their design, activities and economies. Typically, such tourism spaces contain all or a vast majority of facilities and services needed for tourists who have limited possibilities or desires to leave the enclave. At the same time, the locals’ access to these spaces is often limited or otherwise regulated. Thus, enclave tourism spaces are controlled and separated from surrounding communities.

Tourism Enclaves: Geographies of Exclusive Spaces in Tourism focuses on tourism enclaves in different theoretical and geographical contexts. The chapters of the book aim to contribute to our understanding of how these exclusive spaces are created and transformed and how they shape places and place identities.

Creativity has become a popular strategy for promoting the innova-tions and ideas behind economic growth (Richards 2011; Ray 1998). The urban-centric rhetoric behind creativity is, however, problematic when theoretically and practically applied to peripheral spaces despite instances of emerging creativity in the countryside and small cities in peripheral regions (Cloke 2006; Gibson 2010). Overall, rural cultural and creative clusters face many developmental challenges because they are peripheral with respect to global markets, happenings, and publics (Andersen 2010; Gibson, Luckman, and Willoughby-Smith 2010). Thus, various scholars have called for policies and theories that take into account the nature of creativity and networking in rural areas, while concurrently avoiding urban-centric rhetoric as a means of studying, planning, and assessing the success of rural clusters (Cole 2008; Fløysand and Jakobsen 2007).

Because of high fluctuations of tourism demand, accurate predictions of tourist arrivals are of high importance for tourism organizations. The study at hand presents an approach to enhance autoregressive prediction models by including travelers’ web search traffic as external input attribute for tourist arrival prediction. The study proposes a novel method to identify relevant search terms and to aggregate them into a compound web-search index, used as additional input of an autoregressive prediction approach. As methods to predict tourism arrivals, the study compares autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models with the machine learning–based technique artificial neural network (ANN). Study results show that (1) Google Trends data, mirroring traveler’s online search behavior (i.e., big data information source), significantly increase the performance of tourist arrival prediction compared to autoregressive approaches using past arrivals alone, and (2) the machine learning technique ANN has the capacity to outperform ARIMA models. 

Recently, cultural heritage scholars and practitioners have questioned how the field evaluates heritage initiatives. This article considers how a collaborative approach to evaluation may enhance heritage initiatives, particularly at critical developmental stages in their design and implementation. We explore how recent developments in evaluation theory and practice serve interests shared by heritage programme managers, funders and other stakeholders. In particular, programme modelling techniques have proven valuable for engaging a wide array of heritage stakeholders (including staff, funders and site owners). A programme model provides a graphic representation of how a programme is intended to achieve its goals. Programme models have become prevalent in other disciplines, and many government and philanthropic funders require their inclusion in funding proposals and progress reports. However, such models—and the collaborative, stakeholder-driven processes used to develop them—are largely absent from heritage studies.

Examples from the US National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/index.htm) and Cultural Heritage without Borders-Albania (http://chwb.org/) illustrate how these techniques serve important learning and evaluation needs identified by heritage programmes. These contrasting examples demonstrate how programme modelling can enhance programme design, communications and reflective practice among a cross-section of programmatic actors. The concluding discussion explores the implications of programme modelling for the future of heritage management.

Tourism scholars have yet to consider ancestral tourism as a stepping-stone in genealogicalidentity formation. Amateur genealogists use information available to them about their ancestorsand the past to form stories of the self in the present. Through a study of the travel narratives ofSwedish-American ancestral tourists, I link the concept of genealogical identities with theories ofperformance, impression management and narrative identity to explore this phenomenon. Thefindings reveal how ancestral tourists bring into existence their genealogical identities throughthe performative narration of their ancestral travels. Authenticity in these experiences emergesthrough the presentation of a coherent story of the self that gives off desired impressions ofkinship and ethnicity, subsequently legitimizing a genealogical identity. 

Monasteries nowadays attract numerous visitors whose trips reflect varying levels of religious motivation. They witness varying consumption patterns when it comes to visitors’ shopping behaviour on their premises. Thus, building on the model of the tourist-pilgrim continuum, the research utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods to comprehend the consumer behaviour patterns of 184 foreign individuals who visited Kykkos Monastery on the island of Cyprus. The research findings provide further understanding of the tourist-pilgrim continuum by observing, among others, secularism/religious consumerism, souvenir value and the volume and structure of the purchased products. 

The purpose of this paper is to analyze visitor's mobility perception using data collected by the PPGIS method and discuss how it can be used in planning at a tourism destination. Traditionally, planning has been expert-based dominated by rational thinking and less involvement of the public. However, expert-based planning has been criticised as being an elite process excluding the view of the majority. Thus, deliberate efforts have since been made to broaden public engagement in policymaking, empowerment, and decision-making processes. For example, town hall meetings where the public gives their opinion to inform public planning. Nevertheless, methods that require the physical presence of participants and possible active engagement are often perceived as demanding. The past decades' development in technology has opened the possibility for using digital tools such as Public participation GIS (PPGIS). PPGIS is the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to broaden public engagement in planning and management practices. 

Thus, this PPGIS study was done in collaboration with stakeholders in Sälenfjällen, the largest ski tourism destination in Sweden.  Findings from the study indicate PPGIS as an effective way of getting spatially explicit data to inform better decision-making in destination management and planning. However, there are still challenges in areas like data collection, sampling, and quality of the data gathered from the public and its use in planning. The study adds to a growing literature exploring the use of PPGIS in the field of tourism and recreation (e.g., Brown and Weber, 2013; Wolf et al., 2018; Munro et al., 2020) and is to our knowledge among the first to use it in a tourism-transport context in a Nordic case study.   

The purpose of this paper is to discuss challenges and opportunities in using Public participation GIS (PPGIS) in planning at a tourism destination located in a rural context. The past decades' development in technology has opened the possibility for using digital tools such as PPGIS. PPGIS is the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to broaden public engagement in planning and management practices. PPGIS usage in various planning contexts is well documented, however more research is needed on PPGIS usability for planning at tourism destinations located in remote areas of developed countries. This paper uses two case areas with similar characteristics, Sälenfjällen, Sweden, and Kymenlaakso, Finland to contrast and compare the PPGIS use in addressing mobility challenges, respectively. Both Sälenfjällen and Kymenlaakso share a key feature for being prominent tourist destinations located in remote areas that experience mobility challenges. For the destinations to develop sustainably, the mobility issues ought to be addressed for instance through planning conducted to ensure the development of tourism that includes wider societal, economic, and environmental goals. In both studies, the PPGIS method was implemented through surveys shared to visitors where the aim was to collect their perceptions on transport and mobility challenges that could inform destination management and planning.  Findings from the studies indicate that the PPGIS adds to the planning process by improving the collection of spatially explicit data. However, there are still challenges in areas like data collection, sampling, and quality of the data gathered from the public and its implementation in planning. The study adds to a growing literature exploring the use of PPGIS in the field of tourism and recreation and is to our knowledge among the first to use it in a comparative tourism-transport context in the Nordic peripheries.   

Rapporten ingår i projektet Tillgängliga och inkluderande naturmiljöer, mer information om projektet finns här: https://www.miun.se/Forskning/forskningsprojekt/pagaende-forskningsprojekt/tillgangliga-och-inkluderande-naturmiljoer/.

Syftet med projektet har varit att identifiera hinder och redogöra för förbättringsområden för att öka tillgängligheten bland naturturismföretag och offentliga organisationer som arbetar för att utveckla turism för personer med funktionsnedsättningar. Med delstudierna vill vi öka tillgängligheten för personer med funktionsnedsättningar, stärka naturturismföretagens konkurrensförmåga, samt identifiera produkter och lösningar som undanröjer hinder för att besökare ska kunna delta i naturturism på lika villkor. Med stöd från forskningens resultat hoppas vi att privata och offentliga aktörer inom naturturism och friluftsliv kommer förbättra och utveckla verksamheterna, nå målgrupperna och bli mer konkurrenskraftiga.

För att öka tillgängligheten till naturområden och skapa inkluderande utomhusmiljöer krävs kunskap om behov och önskemål bland individer med funktionsnedsättningar och erfarenhet från intresseorganisationer samt från naturturismföretag och personer som arbetar inom offentliga verksamheter med frågor om tillgänglighet, friluftsliv, samhällsplanering och naturvård. Forskningsprojektet har inkluderat alla dessa perspektiv.

Resultaten visar att det finns en ökad vilja och ökat intresse att kunna erbjuda tillgängliga turismprodukter, många naturturismföretag vill utveckla sina verksamheter till att bli mer tillgängliga. För flera företag som anpassat sin verksamhet har detta blivit en viktig del i affärsidén och också en framgångsfaktor. De som verkligen har satsat på och informerat om sin verksamhet, eller etablerat samarbete med föreningar och medlemsorganisationer, upplever en stor efterfrågan. Osäkerheten och okunskapen kring hur tillgänglighetsanpassning kan göras på ett bra och kostnadseffektivt sätt samt hur man ska marknadsföra sig mot målgruppen är stor. Några hinder som pekas ut är ekonomi och resurser, osäkerhet kring investeringar och okunskap. Det krävs också ofta samarbeten mellan många aktörer för att få till anpassade produkter och tjänster. Det finns idag också intressekonflikter mellan att tillgängliggöra skyddade områden, som nationalparker och naturreservat, och samtidigt värna om känsliga naturmiljöer och upplevelsevärden som ”orörd natur”.

Studien av webbsidor som inkluderar offentliga aktörer (länsstyrelse och kommuner), naturturismföretag och olika naturområden (exempelvis rekreationsområden, naturreservat och nationalparker) visar att det finns skillnader i hur naturområden kommuniceras. Generellt finns stora brister vad gäller information på webbsidorna. Få webbsidor visar bilder eller filmer, vissa har beskrivande texter, bilder och film om hur det ser ut i landskapet och om aktiviteter, samt kartor. De flesta med bilder visar växter och djur samt arters livsmiljöer snarare än hur leder ser ut och annan typ av service och infrastruktur.

I rapporten redogör vi för resultat och slutsatser samt fyra längre intervjuer med företrädare från medlemsorganisationen DHR (Delaktighet, Handlingskraft och Rörelsefrihet), företaget Askersunds skärgårdstrafik, projektet FiskaiBerg och föreningen Totalskidskolan.  

In this paper, we examine how the demand of the citizens of Beirut for their ‘right to their city’ played out during the major popular uprising, which began on the 17th of October 2019. We focus on various forms of street art that had already been in place before the uprising as well as several pieces that emerged during the days following the beginning of the demonstrations. Our intent was to flesh out how drawing on the walls of the Lebanese capital manifested itself as a key activity through which people, regardless of sect and socioeconomic status, fought to improve their city and transform it into a space where leaders are corrupt-free, people’s living standards are improved, the environment is cleaner and human rights are respected. We conducted a group interview of Lebanese (street) artists to contextualize the city’s street art scene. The core materials for our study consist of 147 photographs of street art, taken during a week’s stay in Beirut in October 2019. We performed thematic narrative analysis on the material, revealing five distinct themes. All themes reflect demands for a ‘right to the city’ in nuanced ways. We fleshed them out with the use of at least one illustration per theme. While some images projected overt political slogans and art others transmitted their message in a subtler manner. We conclude that graffiti and other forms of street art are powerful means through which groups and individuals project their messages in order to assert their self-preservation and, ultimately, their ‘right to the city’ in contested urban spaces, where power differentials play out on political, social, and spatial levels.

Disengagement from outdoor recreation may diminish the positive benefits on health and well-being in old age. The purpose of this study is to present a contextual, theoretical, and empirical rationale for an intervention, aiming to promote continued engagement in outdoor recreation for older adults in a Swedish context.

The paper includes a contextualization of outdoor recreation in Sweden, a presentation of evidence on health benefits related to engagement in outdoor recreation, together with theoretical frameworks that may guide future intervention designs. To add empirical knowledge, a mixed methods approach was applied, including an empirical data collection based on a quantitative survey (n = 266) and individual semi-structured interviews with older adults (n = 12). Survey data were presented with descriptive statistics. Associations between disengagement from previously performed activities and age and gender was analyzed with Chi2 tests. Transcripts and handwritten notes from the interviews were analyzed qualitatively to identify key themes, as well as patterns and disparities among respondents.

Outdoor recreation was rated as important/very important by 90% of respondents of the survey. The interviews highlighted that engagement in outdoor recreation aided respondents to keep fit but had also relevance in terms of identity, experiences, and daily routines. Outdoor recreation close to the place of residence was most common and walking was the most frequently reported activity. While 80% considered their health to be good/very good, disability and long-term diseases were common and during the previous year, more than half of all respondents had disengaged from activities previously performed. Reasons for disengagement were mainly related to health decline or that activities were too demanding but also due to social loss. The interviews indicated that continued engagement was important but challenging, and that disengagement could be considered as a loss or accepted due to changing circumstances.

In the design of an intervention aiming to promote engagement in outdoor recreation for older adults, the following features are proposed to be considered: person-centeredness, promoting functioning, addressing self-ageism, providing environmental support, promoting subjective mobility needs and adaptation to find new ways to engage in outdoor recreation.

This paper examines the role of regional airports in regional and municipal crisis preparedness based on evidence from a case study in Sweden. During the summer of 2018, Sweden experienced some of the most extensive wildfires in modern time. Aerial suppression, for which airports provided the essential preconditions, played an important role in extinguishing these fires. This study includes analyses of public policies that shape the Swedish airport system as well as evidence from interviews and a workshop with stakeholders. The results show that an efficiently operated network of regional airports is critical not only for crisis management but also to ensure important societal services such as health care in sparsely inhabited regions. Moreover, access toquick transportation by air is necessary for the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, tourism industry, public institutions and private businesses. Additionally intensified by effects of both the public debate on flight shame and the COVID-19 pandemic on air-based transportation, the insights arising from this study emphasise that the currently one-sided focus on the number of passengers is an insufficient foundation for the Swedish airport system to construct a resilient base for regional development, crisis management and civil defense.

In its sustainable tourism agenda for 2030, the UN World Tourism Organization has embraced three United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. One of these, specifically SDG 8, highlights the need to pursue decent work and growth. Nevertheless, despite the growing recognition of this target and although there is a growing number of writings lamenting the precarity characterizing many tourism-related jobs, the topic of tourism-related work continues to receive sparse attention in the considerable volume of academic literature on tourism and sustainability. This paper attempts to redress this neglect. First, by providing a review of extant studies on tourism labor, we seek to explain why this research lacuna continues to exist. We then examine organizational and technological aspects of tourism governance, which hinder attempts to establish decent work and improve dignity in the tourism industry worldwide. By acknowledging the volatile and liminal status of tourism work and future labor market prospects, we arrive at the following question: what should sustainable tourism work look like? This leads us to suggest that the development of a human-centered research agenda, which focuses on workers’ agency and resources, offers a promising research avenue for expanding on the tourism and sustainability research agenda. 

This chapter looks at the role of nature in special events, and the ways event managers integrate nature in the event design. We take the perspective of event managers to explore their awareness of and use of nature as an integral experiential component of their events. Grounded in the theoretical intersection of event studies and nature-based tourism, this chapter contributes with new knowledge on the role of nature in the experience economy. Our findings suggest that nature evokes positive emotional response, enhances the overall event experience, facilitates socio-cultural community, encourages educative and introspective experiences, and provides uniqueness to the event. Based on our study, we argue that actively integrating nature into the event design can be key to authentic, unique and transformative event experiences.

Visual elements of the experience setting play a vital role in tourism and special events, given the oculocentric nature these sectors. At the same time, nature is an arena of diverging, often competing resource use interests, which underlines the importance of identifying key resources and analyzing their significance for each economic sector. In this chapter we focus on the way nature-based experienscapes are visually staged in nature-based tourism and event sectors by looking at the case of Norway. The visual analysis was performed on a sample of images collected from the websites of nature-based tourism firms and events. We discuss three main avenues of nature experiencescape representation: (a) nature as a view; (b) nature as a self-testing ground; and (c) nature as a hedonic space.  It can be argued that nature-based experiencescapes are visually staged primarily according to the pre-existing canon of nature representation in general, which is rather divorced from given spatio-temporal specifics of a tour or an event. Reinforced by the endless circulation of images of ‘typical’ and ‘iconic’ Norwegian nature, suppliers tend to stage their visual experiencescape according to a well-established tradition of nature representation.

In this chapter, we describe the Nordic region as a tourist destination primarily illustrated with examples from Norway, Sweden and Finland. The east–west and north–south gradients of these countries capture many of the special features of nature-based tourism in the Nordic region. In the context of tourism, it makes sense to speak in terms of a destination rather than a region, being a key concept of institutionalized tourism. However, regardless if one takes an economic geography, marketing management, customer, or cultural oriented approach (Saraniemi and Kylänen, 2011), we believe the Nordic region has much in common also as a tourist destination. We also argue there is a common understanding of what nature-based tourism is among the Nordic countries, which can be expressed as human activities occurring when visiting nature areas outside the ordinary neighborhood, or put differently, where the key attraction factor is nature and key activities are based on the nature environment (Koivula and Saastamoinen, 2005). For a more in-depth discussion about definitions of nature-based tourism we refer to the Introduction to this volume. 

As tourists become more politically conscious, the number of boycotts grows. Despite their proliferation, tourism boycotts rarely succeed. This study explores why tourists reject boycotts in the context of mega-events that are often subject to boycott calls. The paper focuses on the attempted boycott of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, Israel, by the Palestinian activist group BDS. Qualitative and quantitative insights from a questionnaire sent to tourists who attended the event provide several reasons for boycott rejection. Tourists were antagonistic to the boycott and shared concerns about its rationale, deeming it unnecessary and unwarranted. This was motivated by a desire to keep the Eurovision free of the contested politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The findings highlight the potential risks of using boycotts in tourism, where boycott demands of non-consumption rub against the innate desire for consumption (or self-gratification) in tourism. Based on these findings, the paper suggests alternative ways of working for peace through tourism in settings of intractable conflict.

Introduction

Nature experiences and outdoor recreation have numerous positive outcomes with important physical and mental health benefits for the individual. In different international and Swedish legislative proposals and governmental letters this is evident; public health and well-being must be supported, as well as outdoor recreation, and nature experiences for everyone. Some groups in society are nevertheless excluded. Different physical disabilities can be particularly challenging due to physical barriers in nature. It can also be a challenge to get to nature areas because of, for example, incomplete information, long distances, transportation, or individual ability. Lack of accessibility is still a crucial obstacle for people with disabilities to participate in outdoor recreation (Burns et al., 2009). 

A better understanding of the participation patterns and perceived constraints by people with disabilities is necessary if nature and outdoor recreation are going to become accessible and inclusive (Corazon et al., 2019). The project aims to understand factors that enable and hinder participation in outdoor activities for people with physical disabilities. In the context of Östersund municipality, Sweden, we discuss how people with physical disabilities perceive accessibility to nature, and analyse available information on websites. What prevents people from getting out into nature? What kind of barriers can be identified? What kind of information is needed and is it available? 

 Method

This is a pilot study with a mixed-methods approach, using semi-structured interviews as its main data collection, followed by an analysis of websites and field observations. Initially, six interviews were conducted in October 2020-May 2021 with people with physical disabilities. The interviewees were identified through local disability associations and were contacted either by email or telephone. The interviews lasted approximately 1–1,5 hours, and were recorded, transcribed and anonymised. Questions included experiences and activities in the outdoors, their experiences of accessibility, safety and information. Follow-up questions were used, often leading to an unstructured dialogue where issues and anecdotes emerged.

Five websites were analysed: Östersund municipality, Jämtland county administration board, Jämtland Härjedalen Tourism (JHT), the Accessible database, and Naturkartan.se (a digital visit guide to nature areas). The focus was to identify information available in terms of outdoor recreation. In addition, 18 place observations were carried out in Östersund municipality in June-July 2019 and 2020. These areas - nature reserves and non-protected nature areas - were selected based on website information and the researchers’ local knowledge. Factors such as terrain, public transportations, facilities and the outdoor opportunities in general were considered. An observation took 1-3 hours and included field notes and photo documentation.

 Results

The interviewed spend a lot of time in the nearby nature; it is safer and takes less energy without disappointments. The need for assistance to get out into nature is in many cases clear; people with disabilities are not always independent or autonomous. Maja, a woman in her 40s and nearly blind, says: “One limitation is to get to nature areas by car or bus, it becomes a project too big; I rarely go alone, it is with my husband and children. I have the right to a travel service but it is difficult, it is expensive and not obvious to find the way to nature.” Transport options are important, as well as to actually being able to get from the parking lot to the nature area. There is an obvious lack of understanding of the whole chain of accessibility; to get from A to B. Daniel uses a wheelchair due to an accident and he describes: “Often it is the last meters that becomes a problem. I never get all the way... we saw the water, but we had to sit in the car and eat. ... I feel that it is the final part that goes wrong.“ However, motorized outdoor activities (e.g. quad bike, moped or snowmobile) make nature more accessible, according to some of the interviewed.

 Mainly the interviewed get information about various nature areas for outdoor recreation from other people. Interviewees state that information is very important for daring to visit places, especially locations where you have not been before. It is crucial that detailed information is available on websites with images of the nature area as well. Information they considered of relevance was about the terrain, distances, accessible toilets, and public transports. The lack of adapted toilets is something that all interviewees highlight as a problem when they visit nature. Simple practical adjustments but also information would make nature more accessible. For the interviewees, on-site signs and information boards are appreciated - if the authentic feeling of the area remains. 

Our overview of the websites shows that the degree of detailed information differs a lot, and that information is dispersed and not always easy to find. For example, the nature reserve Lillsjön is described to have an adapted footbridge, but the place observation showed that it had been closed for several years for restoration. Also the digital information regarding accessibility of adapted fireplaces and wind shields as well as facilities and equipment on site, need to be developed. 

Conclusions

This study reveals how important local nature is to people with physical disabilities and that basic adjustments are lacking (e.g. toilets) and holistic understandings of the experience. There is information about some accessible nature areas in Östersund municipality, but there is still a lack of basic and detailed information. The place observations show that certain nature areas are accessible, but that there is a gap between the municipality’s strategy and reality. Based on this study, the conclusion is that Östersund municipality tries to be inclusive but further information needs to be developed in dialogue with people with disabilities. 

Burns, N., Paterson, K., & Watson, N. (2009). An inclusive outdoors? Disabled people’s experiences of countryside leisure services. Leisure Studies, 28(4), 403-417.

Corazon, S. S., Gramkov, M. C., Poulsen, D. V., Lygum, V. L., Zhang, G., & Stigsdotter, U. K. (2019). I would really like to visit the forest, but it is just too difficult: a qualitative study on mobility disability and green spaces. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 21(1).

Many small island destinations owe their spatial character to their entanglements with stakeholders involved in the arts. Space is the dynamic outcome of complex relational processes, which makes it impossible to identify a straightforward development path - including when it comes to the arts and tourism. Using assemblage thinking, we scrutinize the different translocal processes influencing art-based tourism activities on Bornholm, Denmark and Naoshima, Japan. On these islands, artists, investors, residents, destination managers, creative individuals, and government officials are all involved in networks and negotiations that form complex translocal assemblages of art and tourism. The craft-artists of Bornholm took advantage of regional development policies aimed at fostering rural tourism development, and subsequently established a destination known for quality professional craft art. On Naoshima, top-down corporate investments in large-scale art developments have clashed with local stakes in rural revitalization. These top-down projects have attracted creative in-migrants who have further turned Naoshima into a hybrid space. While Bornholm's entanglement with the arts stems from the possibilities generated by its spatial evolution, Naoshima's involvement with the arts first led to reterritorialization and then creative enhancement. Both islands are, thus, distinct loci of translocal art trajectories.

Immigrant-receiving societies emphasize the need for immigrants to integrate intomainstream life. In Sweden, this trend has manifested itself in integration policies.In the present study, the authors aim to understand sports and outdoor events experience and its effects on social integration of immigrants and refugees’ in the Jämtland County, Sweden. By ‘giving voice’ to 19 immigrants from different nationalities, this study explores the new Swedes’ perspectives on social integration process and conceptualizes their engagement and experience of sports and outdoor events throughout this process. The participants speak of the benefits and needs to participate actively in the society of settlement, but they also describe the barriers and obstacles that they may face. Their perception of integration is built on their life stories and experiences. Based on findings and results, three descriptive themes are described. These themes are interpreted in one overarching theme elaborating the role of sports and outdoor events as a social connection leading to social integration of newcomers. It is assumed that sports and outdoors are not strong enough to achieve social integration, rather they can act as social bridges and provide a common ground where integration can be cultivated. The results of this study can be useful for the sports and events planners and organizers as well as those who deal with newcomers’ integration in any society

Denna rapport sammanställer underlag på nationell och regional nivå i syfte att utveckla regional besöksnäring och ge underlag till pågående strategiarbete i Jämtland Härjedalen. Rapporten är en del i projektet ”Besöksnäringens roll för regional utveckling” med finansiering från Region Jämtland Härjedalen. Inom projektet tar Jämtland Härjedalen Turism (JHT) i samverkan med turismforskningsmiljön ETOUR på Mittuniversitetet fram kunskapsunderlag med fokus på turism- och besöksnäringsutveckling. Innehåll och slutsatser bygger på en sammanställning av både publicerat material och insamlad data.

I rapporten presenteras turismforskningens komplexa natur som spänner över flera akademiska discipliner för att kunna förstå, förklara och problematisera turism och resande. Turism är ett globalt fenomen som hänger tätt samman med ekonomisk utveckling, demografiska förändringar, sociala relationer och naturmiljöns förändringar. Turismen bidrar, så väl positivt som negativt, till ekologisk, ekonomisk och social förändring på en plats. Det finns många och stora utmaningar när det kommer till hållbar destinationsutveckling där tillväxten inom näringslivet, ofta grundat i behovet av arbetstillfällen och förstärkt skattekraft i kommuner, prioriteras före sociala och miljömässiga konsekvenser som kan uppstå.

Inom svensk turismforskning är en övervägande del inriktad på vilken nytta och vilka utmaningar som besöksnäringen kan medföra till samhället, där aspekter av social och ekonomisk hållbarhet har stort fokus på samarbete mellan myndigheter och lokala aktörer.  Även forskning om turismens påverkan på klimatet har ökat de senaste åren, liksom vilken roll turismen spelar för lokalt boende. En tydlig tendens är att fokus på hållbarhet har blivit allt viktigare inom turismforskningen.

Vid sidan om turismforskningen presenteras även nationella och regionala rapporter och dokument rörande turismen i Sverige och Jämtland Härjedalen. Dessa rapporter och dokument visar på att landets växande turism är viktig för utvecklingen i hela landet, och statliga utredningar visar på tydliga synergier mellan lokal service och turism i landsbygdsområden. Besöksnäringen kan beskrivas som en viktig länk mellan stad och landsbygd, och det är få andra näringar som har ett så utpräglat ”hela-landet-perspektiv”.

Utmaningar för turismen och besöksnäringen är att nå hållbar ekonomisk, ekologisk och social utveckling. Det finns därför ett stort behov av en samlad politik för landets besöksnäring, där samverkan och gemensamma utvecklingsprocesser mellan flera olika aktörer på olika nivåer är avgörande. Detta samarbete är även viktigt för att i större utsträckning inkludera besöksnäringen i landets samhällsutveckling. 

När personer med koppling till besöksnäringen i Jämtland Härjedalen själva får ange styrkeområden och utmaningar växer det fram en bred bild av komplexa sammanhang. Värt att notera är att dessa är både positiva och negativa och med fördel kan delas upp i ekonomiska, sociala och miljömässiga. Natur och hållbarhet har stort genomslag men även mjuka värden (tex hälsa, stolthet, identitet och betydelsen för livsmiljön) spelar en stor roll.

Smart specialisering är ett begrepp som kretsar kring att regioner bör satsa på det man relativt sett kan bli bäst på för att stärka den regionala konkurrenskraften. De intervjuade personerna konstaterar att besöksnäringen är en bra inkörsport på arbetsmarknaden som erbjuder sysselsättning över hela regionen, även i områden som har få andra sysselsättningsalternativ. Besöksnäringen konstateras vidare bidra till god hälsa och livsmiljö samt bidra till inflyttning. Turismen upprätthåller lokal service och har lång tradition och stark koppling till forsknings- och utvecklingsmiljöer.

I rapportens avslutande del diskuteras vilken data och vilken dataanalys som kopplar till besöksnäringen. Det konstateras att ett relativt rikt datamaterial skulle vinna på mer djupgående analys och att forskarsamhället behöver bli bättre på att mäta, beskriva och jämföra även mjuka värden.

Rapporten slår fast att besöksnäringens aktörer upplever den egna och andras organisationer ha en många gånger otydlig roll med otydliga ansvarsområden. Med en ständigt föränderlig finansiering blir förutsättningarna otydliga. Viktigt för att klara ut roller och ansvar, samt vilka prioriteringar som göras i framtiden, blir att strategier på alla nivåer är genomarbetade och förankrade med goda förutsättningar för implementering.

Avslutningsvis konstateras att besöksnäringen spelar en stor roll för regional utveckling och livskvalitet. Effekterna är många och ofta komplexa, men fortsatta strategiska satsningar blir viktiga för att stärka långsiktigt hållbar utveckling som lockar till besök, inflyttning och kvarstanning och i förlängningen hela samhällets utveckling.