Tourism must undergo a fundamental transformation if it is to align with climate targets. However, strategies in the sector have mainly prioritised eco-efficiency over more radical approaches. This paper brings the concept of sufficiency into tourism research - understood here as sustainability strategies that seek to reduce overall resource use and demand within ecological and social boundaries. Such strategies often conflict with dominant growth logics and may therefore require careful "navigation" to resonate widely. The aim of this paper is thus to understand how such navigation may be done. Focusing on the Western Sweden Tourism Board (WSTB) and its initiative, The Sustainability Stride (TSS), we investigate how a Destination Management Organisation - an actor well-placed to shape tourism development - engages with sufficiency-oriented forms of sustainability while operating within a promotional mandate. Using a qualitative case study approach and drawing on framing theory, we identify five dimensions of TSS in which sufficiency logics are present, and how WSTB utilises framing techniques to maintain alignment with sectoral norms. This paper contributes a new perspective to tourism research and practice by analysing how sufficiency can be framed and made actionable in destination-level strategies.
Environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB) is widely recognised as essential for sustainable tourism, yet its governance remains fragmented and largely aspirational. This study examines how visitor behaviour is operationalised within a multi-level tourism governance system, using Estonia as a case. Drawing on 13 expert interviews across national, regional, and local institutions, we apply inductive content analysis to identify systemic gaps and enabling conditions. Findings reveal deficits in accountability, coordination, and participation, compounded by structural enablers that remain underdeveloped: limited local capacity and skills, absence of ERB monitoring routines, and fragmented digital information architectures. While actors affirm support for sustainability, behavioural tools, such as signage or incentives, are inconsistently integrated into destination routines. Non-traditional actors, including environmental infrastructure agencies and guides, emerge as critical behavioural amplifiers, yet lack formal recognition in governance frameworks. The study advances sustainable tourism governance theory by linking ERB to multi-level governance and highlighting the need for capability building, robust indicators, and integrated digital systems alongside mandates and coordination mechanisms. Practical implications include embedding ERB objectives in national strategies, strengthening DMOs as development coordinators, and institutionalising monitoring and co-designed interventions. These insights inform policy design and future research on behavioural governance in tourism.
This qualitative, exploratory study examines how urban-dwelling Finns sustain holistic well-being and how these everyday practices can inform tourism marketing and urban planning. Grounded in Dunn's [Dunn, H. L. (1959). High-Level Wellness for Man and Society. American Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, 49(6), 786-792. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.49.6.786] body-mind-spirit model and Baer and Gesler's [Baer, L. D., & Gesler, W. M. (2004). Reconsidering the concept of therapeutic landscapes in J D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Area, 36(4), 404-413. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0004-0894.2004.00240.x] therapeutic landscape framework, the research analyses how natural, built, social, and symbolic environments support urban wellness. Data were collected from focus groups in Espoo and Turku (n = 13) and specialist interviews with destination management organisations and urban planners (n = 4). The findings show that Finnish urban wellness is deeply rooted in nearby forests and parks, strong social ties, locally produced food, and regular sauna use. Both cities emphasise sustainability, nature stewardship, and community well-being, despite differing institutional roles. The results also indicate that many resident well-being practices are routine-based and culturally embedded, meaning they do not automatically translate into tourism offerings and must be considered selectively and contextually. Although the small sample limits generalisability, the study provides valuable insight into the lived experience of urban well-being. It contributes to wellness tourism literature by illustrating how urban environments may serve as wellness destinations that support both resident and visitor well-being when development aligns carefully with local needs, environmental limits, and everyday practices.
The study examines how three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness affect consumer participation (CP) in events and how CP influences revisiting and recommending intentions. Further, it explores the moderating role of attendance frequency in the CP-behavioral intentions relationships. A quantitative design was employed, using a survey, and data were collected from 383 attendees at two Pride events in Spain and Norway. The findings reveal that (a) perceived autonomy has a context-specific effect on CP, (b) perceived relatedness consistently enhances CP across both events, (c) perceived competence does not significantly influence CP, (d) CP positively predicts revisiting and recommending intentions, and (e) frequent past attendance in the long-term negatively moderates the effects of CP on both revisiting and recommending intentions. This study advances understanding of how passive attendance can be transformed into participatory behavior and highlights practical ways for organizers to enhance consumers' behavioral intentions.
Tourists experience conflicts and dilemmas in relation to sustainable travelling, and studies on sustainable tourism have focused on dichotomies such as knowledge/value-action gaps to explain discrepancies between intentions and actions taken to travel more sustainably. This paper contributes to this field of research through interviews with young adult travellers - explored through a sample of university students - and demonstrates how multiple coping practices are utilised to handle (un)sustainable travelling. We highlight the under-researched significance of social communities in shaping the ways in which young adults think, talk and practice sustainable travelling. We theorise upon the relationships between coping practices and parents, peers and partners, and suggest a new sustainable travel coping framework to help advance our understanding of sustainable travelling practices among young adults.
There is growing interest among amateur athletes in participating in sports competition events, which can be seen as a form of "sports tourism". The climate impacts of such practices have been relatively underexplored - particularly from a holistic perspective that includes the consumption of sporting goods. To address this gap, this study combines life cycle assessment (LCA) with survey data on the consumption practices of sport event participants, including expenditure on sporting goods, services and travel. The study contributes new insights into the climate impact hotspots of mass participation running and cycling events, highlighting car-based travel to events, air travel to training camps abroad, and the overall volume of sporting goods consumption. These findings support key strategies for reducing climate impacts. For event organizers, this includes offering or facilitating low-carbon transport options and developing alternatives to training camps abroad to support participant motivation and preparation. For individual participants, impactful actions include avoiding fossil-fuel-based transport, refraining from air travel to training camps abroad and embracing sufficiency-oriented and circular consumption practices of sporting goods. By presenting life cycle climate impacts for a range of sporting goods, this study provides a foundation for evaluating and mitigating the environmental impacts of similar events.
This article explores the launching of the supersized cruise ferries Silja Serenade (1990) and Silja Symphony (1991) as an early example of an experiential approach to luxury in the Nordic context. It analyzes how the marketing of the two sister ships entailed a renegotiation of luxury in the cruise ferry context of the Baltic Sea in the early 1990s. The concept of popular luxury is introduced to explain how the cruise experience was promoted as luxurious without losing its original mass appeal. The luxury ferry cruise experience was constructed by blending modernity and comfort with the traditional aura of cruising. Through the concept of "a true luxury cruise" and the exoticization of similarities with cruising in the tropics, the marketing conveyed a promise of romance, escapism, and Caribbean feelings. In the article, we argue that popular luxury in the Baltic Sea ferry industry signified a luxurization of an already popular phenomenon and involved an increasing focus on individualism, self-realization and pursuit of experiential luxury. Popular luxury thus becomes a valuable lens for understanding a more fundamental shift in the tourism culture of the Nordic countries during the late twentieth century.
In November 2025, Professor Dieter M & uuml;ller of the University of Ume & aring; suddenly passed away while returning from a work meeting in Norway. His unexpected death sent shockwaves through the Nordic tourism and geography communities to which he has long been a significant contributor. This paper celebrates his life and work, which linked theory development with empirical studies and his contributions to Nordic tourism research. Three main themes are identified: second home tourism, S & aacute;mi tourism, and Arctic tourism geography. The commonalities of the three areas are that Dieter saw tourism as a dynamic and modernising industrial and social field, significant for wellbeing, and important to regional development and the societal development of the Arctic region. In addition, there is an awareness of tourism's ethnopolitical significance and, more recently, geopolitical significance, viewing tourism as both a changing force in society and as a product of societal changes.
While behavior change is vital for carbon-neutral tourism, research on specific actions like carbon-neutral travel behavior among younger generations remains limited. Therefore, this study investigates carbon-neutral travel behavior as a distinct form of pro-environmental behavior, emphasizing the motivations of younger travelers. The research utilized a questionnaire to gather data in Finland, incorporating the theory of planned behavior and the norm activation model. Unlike prior research that focused on awareness of negative consequences, we examined awareness of positive consequences as a factor driving personal norms. The integrated model, validated through the cross-validation predictive ability test, showed superior predictive power. The results indicated that components of the theory of planned behavior, especially social norms, directly and positively influence carbon-neutral travel behavior. Additionally, the results emphasize that awareness of positive consequences has a 4.2 times greater impact on attitude, indicating that recognizing positive outcomes can significantly influence carbon-neutral travel behavior more than awareness of negative outcomes. Ultimately, the analysis of the importance-performance map yields significant practical insights by highlighting the critical necessity to account for social norms. These findings offer valuable managerial implications for Finland and the Nordic region, helping policymakers and tourism stakeholders develop more effective interventions for sustainable travel.
The restaurant industry faces challenges with poor working conditions and low job status, making it difficult to recruit and retain staff. With this premise, this study examines how the concept of restaurant work is constructed within the restaurant industry and broader societal discourses by applying two Foucauldian analytical tools: the problem and the truth. The article's contextual starting point is the reduced VAT rate for restaurant and catering services in Sweden, which is implemented to combat unemployment and increase the flow of labour into the industry. The analysis reveals three key representations: the social entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial victimhood, and the frontline guardian of the moral economy. These representations highlight the restaurant industry's position in addressing unemployment and integration, while also emphasising the economic hardships faced by restaurant entrepreneurs. The study concludes that an entrenched link between low-status jobs and the restaurant industry is perpetuated by these representations, suggesting that investments in improved working conditions are considered to put the economic foundation of the restaurant industry at risk.
The growing adoption of dynamic pricing in tourism and beyond contrasts with our limited understanding of how individual differences affect customer responses. This study examines how personality traits influence price unfairness perceptions of revenue management and purchase intentions in the alpine skiing industry. We conduct two studies: a large-scale correlational survey of 1,627 skiers from Austria, Canada, Norway, and the United States, and a short, quasi-experimental follow-up study with 206 participants from Italy and the United States. Across the two studies we find that agreeableness and openness reduce, whereas neuroticism increases, the perceived unfairness of revenue management. This perceived unfairness of revenue management has important consequences: reduced purchase intent and an increased desire for revenge. This study shows that personality traits, although not directly observable, strongly predict behavioral intentions. They can be inferred from the ways customers react to managerial actions within a firm's control. The study contributes to research on the antecedents of price fairness and to broader debates on personality traits and the Five-Factor Model. Practical implications include opportunities for more effective personalized pricing strategies. Implementation must be guided by transparency and robust ethical safeguards.
Customer satisfaction continues to be central to service providers. This research explores a novel perspective of interpreting customer satisfaction through the lens of liminality, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of a global liminal state. Drawing on real and longitudinal customer satisfaction data from a Finnish hotel chain, we reveal how liminal conditions influence customers' perceptions of satisfaction. Analyzing quantitative and qualitative data, we identify key themes that shape satisfaction during times of liminality, including perceived safety, employee behavior, and quality and value. Based on the findings, we infer three new dimensions - procedural, prosocial, and contextual - that extend the traditional understanding of customer satisfaction. This framework integrates these new dimensions alongside established satisfaction elements, offering a more comprehensive perspective on customer satisfaction during disruptions. This framework provides a structured approach for service providers to manage disruptions and sustain customer satisfaction through targeted interventions. Specifically, providers can focus on procedural adjustments like staff transparency, prosocial interventions that encourage customer contribution and support, and contextual adaptations that ensure a safe and transparent atmosphere. This study advances theoretical understanding of customer satisfaction in transitional contexts by introducing a framework for periods of uncertainty, with practical implications for service management.
Norway has the largest glaciers of mainland Europe, which are retreating at an accelerating rate. There is still limited knowledge about what their retreat means for society. The disappearance of glaciers affects the tourism industry, outdoor recreationists, and local communities. Here we study the implications of glacier retreat in two tourism destinations in Western Norway: Briksdalen, where the glacier has retreated several kilometers the last 20 years, and is no longer suitable for glacier guiding, while in Nigardsbreen there is still a vibrant glacier guiding community. Both glaciers are still among the most popular natural attractions in Western Norway. Comparing these two stages of glacial retreat, we ask what differences in motivations, beliefs, and perceptions can be observed among tourists. Our findings reveal that despite the advanced retreat of Briksdalsbreen, it is no less popular for sightseeing than Nigardsbreen. Motivations related to last-chance tourism are not dominant; instead, the primary draw remains the unique landscape and opportunity to see a glacier. The study highlights that while climate change awareness exists, motivations are more influenced by travel mode and experience preferences than by the degree of glacier accessibility.
Amid escalating environmental degradation, geopolitical and geoeconomic instability, and the structural vulnerabilities exposed by COVID-19 pandemic, resilience has become a central concern in tourism scholarship and policymaking. This introduction and the associated special issue examine how resilience is conceptualised and operationalised in Nordic tourism contexts. It demonstrates that resilience is not a neutral or universally shared idea or goal. The contributions in the special issue highlight how resilience emerges through social innovation in second-home destinations, communication strategies of destination management organisations, biodiversity-oriented leadership in national policy frameworks, post-disaster recovery and transformation processes, and the role of change agency under crisis conditions. These studies offer a multi-scalar view of resilience and reveal how institutional constraints, governance dynamics, and power asymmetries between different actors and scales shape what forms of resilience are possible and included or excluded. Based on this, there is a need to challenge often dominant instrumental and recovery-oriented uses of the concept and call for a more inclusive, ecologically grounded, and politically sensitive research agenda. By synthesising these insights and outlining future directions for resilience research in Nordic tourism, we call for moving beyond managerial framings to engage with the socio-ecological, political, and spatial conditions shaping tourism futures.
Tourism's contribution to global emissions is significant and is expected to grow as people travel more frequently. The challenges of decarbonization faced by both tourism industry actors and policymakers are considerable. Using a qualitative approach, this study examines how leaders in the Norwegian tourism industry approach carbon mitigation, what they see as the main challenges, and what policy measures they believe are required for efficient decarbonization. Interviews with leaders of large tourism firms in Norway, including aviation, ferries, cruises, and hotel chains, illustrate the complexities of working towards a low-carbon society in a heterogeneous industry. Both sectoral and cross-sectoral policies at international, national, and regional levels are needed to support this transition. Our findings are discussed in relation to the "avoid-shift-improve" model, recognised as essential for achieving sufficient reduction.
Orkney Islands is a popular cold-water archipelago destination for cruise tourism and other marine and coastal tourism activities, where visitor economy plays a key part in the economic development of the islands. However, Orkney's coastal communities are facing many sustainability challenges, directly related to tourism activities, as well as impacted by wider processes in the region and beyond. Therefore, tourism decision-makers are tasked with addressing the sustainability needs of communities in the archipelago, in their efforts to implement a transition towards sustainable future of Orkney as a destination. In the tourism sector, the framework for this transition is the Orkney Tourism Strategy. The aim of this paper is to explore the sustainability needs of Orkney, as defined by members of its local communities in the context of tourism development, to consider how these needs may influence successful tourism strategy development. Employing a qualitative multi-method case study methodology, this study identifies the importance and relevance of sense of place in determining the sustainability needs of communities. It is argued that tourism development initiatives, especially in small coastal communities, will benefit from an analysis of layers of context to produce meaningful tourism strategies.
Outdoor recreation is an increasingly important activity worldwide. To support outdoor recreational opportunities, it is essential to understand when and where people recreate, what they do when recreating, who are using the outdoor spaces for recreation, and why. Human outdoor recreation behavior has been increasingly studied with a variety of novel geospatial data sources that have become available in the past few decades. Multiple studies have applied user-generated geospatial data from social media, mobile network operators, GNSS/GPS tracking, or participatory mapping to understand outdoor recreation. Yet, the extent of the use of these data sources remains unclear. In this scoping review, we characterize the quantity and quality of the literature using geospatial data sources and further outline what types of information have been drawn from these data sources. Our review shows that the analyzed geospatial data sources vary considerably in terms of the depth of relevant information that can be extracted from them. Future research and management interested in human outdoor recreation should apply a combination of geospatial data sources, mixing especially active and passive sensing approaches to unlock their information and knowledge potential.
The hospitality industry is constantly evolving, which presents challenges from changing customer and employee preferences to technological advancements. Future leaders must, therefore, equip themselves with essential competencies in strategic and technological development while adeptly managing evolving guest and employee expectations. This will probably necessitate re-evaluating and re-imagining future leadership styles in the hospitality industry, which need to be further explored. This study aims to explore what essential competencies and skills future leaders in the hotel industry need and the leadership challenges they will face if these competencies are lacking. Inspired by Bharwani and Talib's [(2017). Competencies of hotel general managers: A conceptual framework. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(1), 393-418] competency framework, we conducted semi-structured, individual interviews including 14 experienced general managers from the Norwegian hotel industry. Key findings from the data analysis underscored the significance of communication, problem-solving, and self-management skills. Moreover, contextual leadership emerged as a pivotal aspect, underlining the necessity of adaptable leadership skills tailored to diverse hotel needs. Our study extends Bharwani and Talib's competency framework by highlighting the need for education and experience, understanding culture and language contextually, and creativity-fostering skills in future leaders.
