Mid Sweden University

Evolutionary economic geography (EEG) is an emerging theoretical framework whichattempts to better understand long-term economic change and why it differs betweenregions. Tourism geographers are showing increasing interest in EEG with a growingnumber of publications and conference presentations on EEG applications withintourism studies. This article briefly sets out the conceptual background to EEG andhow it relates to extant studies within tourism, drawing on examples from theliterature on tourism studies and evolutionary research. A concise list of someactionable areas for EEG studies within tourism is presented as well as an appraisal ofthe theoretical particularities of applying EEG within tourism studies. EEG is shownto be a new path with much potential for tourism research.

This paper presents the extant literature on evolutionary economic geography (EEG) and tourism studies and briefly reviews what has been produced thus far. There are two main areas addressed: path dependence (and how to break from a path) and co-evolution (of tourism paths within a given region and of regional paths including tourism). The papers already published on EEG and tourism feature cases from resort communities, mass tourism destinations and rural and peripheral areas with all cases from highly developed countries (Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Australia). Next, the papers of the special issue are explored and show a broadening of the geographical reach (to include China and Spain) and a move to apply EEG theory as part of a hybrid theoretical framework. Finally, the paper concludes with a call for broader evolutionary approaches in tourism studies beyond strictly business development studies. This ultimately requires the development of EEG measures in line with the goals of sustainable tourism development.

Evolutionary economic geography (EEG) is receiving increasing attention from tourism geographers with over 30 publications explicitly incorporating EEG into tourism between 2011 and 2016. Many of these contributions are conceptual, which is not surprising given the novelty of EEG within economic geography, in general, and tourism, in particular. However, a sizeable number of these are built on detailed case studies, using EEG as an analytical lens rather than as a conceptual point of departure. Thus, many tourism researchers have found that EEG has great potential for understanding change in tourism destinations. In this Research Frontiers paper I critically reflect on this early research of EEG in tourism geographies from a sustainable development perspective. In the cases presented, EEG offers a fresh understanding of two related challenges in each of two separate aspects of sustainable tourism development. First, pro-growth governance models can be disrupted by engaged local stakeholders in order to make tangible sustainability gains but these gains remain precarious over time as pro-growth governance models prove tenacious in the very long-term. Second, regional institutional legacies hamper new path emergence in two ways - through institutional inertia which keeps the region's focus on past success in other sectors and through the (possibly competing) institutional imperatives of the dominant and emerging tourism sub-sectors or sub-regions. These challenges are illustrated through two complementary Canadian cases drawn from the extant literature - the mass tourism destination of Niagara and the resort community of Whistler. I highlight how a sustainable tourism perspective can also help to critique EEG theory and empirics in line with other recent political economy critiques in economic geography. I conclude that sustainable tourism, at its best, is an established reflexive lens which will help to develop, validate, and challenge aspects of EEG theory within tourism studies, in particular, and economic geography, in general.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how previous experience and location of entrepreneurs influence the survival of new tourism firms. The paper departs from recent evolutionary economic geography advancements, highlighting the importance of routines and skills as well as location-specific knowledge for firm success. While having been well-researched for manufacturing industries characterized by high entry barriers, little knowledge is currently available on the factors influencing survival rates in service sectors with low entry barriers. A quantitative approach applies hazard models to investigate the survival rates over a seven-year period of a total of 133 new micro-tourism firms started between 1999 and 2001 in the four northernmost counties of Sweden. The geo-referenced micro-database ASTRID links information on firm features (e.g. firm births and deaths, spatial coordinates and industry codes) to characteristics of entrepreneurs (e.g. age, education, previous experience). The main finding is that entrepreneurs with previous work experience in related sectors are more likely to survive and, in this case, entrepreneurs without local experience tend to be less successful. We find no evidence that new firms operating in regions specialized in tourism have a survival advantage. Our analysis also indicates that surviving firms improve performance over time. The paper thus contributes new knowledge on the determinants of micro-firm survival in tourism.

The intersection between social media, liminality and nature-based tourism experiences hasn’t been the focus of previous tourism research. Such intersection, on the other hand, is illustrative of how social media relate to the constitution and performance of tourism spatialities, tourist identities, storytelling and place-making, and can lead to relevant theoretical contributes. We aim to investigate how liminality is expressed in relation to nature-based experiences by tourists on social media, and what role social media plays in mediating liminality during nature-based tourism experiences. The analysis is based on a participatory netnography of images and text posts, as well as online interviews with users of the popular social media Instagram. Findings show that the expression of tourism experiences in nature is closely related to specific notions of liminal otherness as opposed to the urban life and the everyday, where nature and wilderness are expressed as related to the genuine, the authentic and a true inner self. Creative combinations of pictures, captions and hashtags make it easier for tourists to express the contrast between the natural landscape and the everyday landscape once they returned home. These combinations also relate closely to performances of resistant and alternative selves and communities. At the same time, such performances are mediated and contested between freedom of self-expression, surveillance and social norms, an aspect that makes their liminal nature ambiguous. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has halted mobility globally on an unprecedented scale, causing the neoliberal market mechanisms of global tourism to be severely disrupted. In turn, this situation is leading to the decline of certain mainstream business formats and, simultaneously, the emergence of others. Based on a review of recent crisis recovery processes, the tourism sector is likely to rebound from this sudden market shock, primarily because of various forms of government interventions. Nevertheless, although policymakers seek to strengthen the resilience of post-pandemic tourism, their subsidies and other initiatives serve to maintain a fundamentally flawed market logic. The crisis has, therefore, brought us to a fork in the road–giving us the perfect opportunity to select a new direction and move forward by adopting a more sustainable path. Specifically, COVID-19 offers public, private, and academic actors a unique opportunity to design and consolidate the transition towards a greener and more balanced tourism. Tourism scholars, for example, can take a leading role in this by redesigning their curriculum to prepare future industry leaders for a more responsible travel and tourism experience. 

Tourism does not exist in isolation as an economic activity and is embedded in

numerous highly complex internal and external networks. As such, understanding

tourism’s relations to places and regions is a challenging task. The introduction to this

special issue defines the editors’ goals of proposing that an evolutionary economic

geography (EEG) approach can provide an insightful conceptual framework for

understanding the relationship between tourism development and local and global

economies. The first set of papers clearly outline and demonstrate the EEG

perspective. The latter set of papers are not explicitly EEG oriented; however, the

arguments and findings that the authors make have clear evolutionary theory

implications. The special issue is intended to generate further research and dialog on

the relations among tourism, development and place.

Following the rhetoric of sustainability, many destinations have adopted policies aimed at attracting high spending visitors while limiting the further growth of mass package tourism. Drawing mainly from the experiences of small-island destinations, we question whether these policies are either environmentally or economically justifiable. Up-market tourists are few in number, prefer varied destinations and require luxury accommodations and facilities that are environmentally taxing and often foreign owned. Mass tourism, while certainly no panacea, has the advantages of larger markets, higher rates of repeat visitation, lower per capita rates of energy and natural resource use, and is often relatively spatially confined. Additionally, given the downturn in all travel following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, destinations are likely to welcome any paying guest.

Tourism's relationship to political boundaries has caught the attention of researchers only recently, even though on a more general level the academic study of borders attracts considerable interest. A topic that has been explored only superficially concerns the obstacles inhibiting tourism's development in a cross-border setting and, particularly, the tensions arising when the respective national interests of the two neighbouring countries do not coincide with the mutual benefits to be derived through close transfrontier collaboration at the regional level. An emerging key question is what forces dominate within the region straddling the border between two countries - those dictated by the respective national interests of each country, or those benefiting the transboundary region itself? These issues are explored through an examination of the Bothnian Arc Project, a cross-border collaborative effort between Sweden and Finland. A detailed investigation of the planning process that has been put into effect for developing and marketing this coastal region's tourist product is provided. Among the issues discussed are the attempts on the part of all stakeholders to establish a unifying identity for the region, which will set it aside from other destinations in northern Scandinavia (e.g. Lapland). The focus is on some of the most important challenges lying ahead in terms of developing and marketing this cross-border region as a single destination. Additionally, the investigation shows that even if the border in this region has effectively disappeared, obstacles remain to achieving mutual regional benefits.

Geographers have increasingly criticized the absence of theoretical rigour characterizing ­studies of the tourism production system. Tourism entrepreneurship is one related research area that has not received the level of attention it deserves. Additionally, the role that innovation plays in small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) has not been examined in depth. This paper focuses on a study of entrepreneurial activity among SMTEs in a peripheral region, namely the Danish island of Bornholm. The study is based on thirty in-depth, non-random, structured interviews with owners of tourism-related enterprises. An examination of the key characteristics of these SMTEs provides evidence that most can be described as 'gap-fillers', companies operated by so-called 'constrained' or 'non-entrepreneurs', which do not display evidence of having adopted significant product or process innovations. Among the key ­barriers to innovation identified are the extreme seasonality plaguing the island's tourist industry and, related to this, the uncompetitive nature of the existing tourist industry.

The Airbnb phenomenon as part of the broader growth of the so-called collaborative economy has grabbed the attention of a growing number of tourism researchers. Among the topics explored have been investigations as to the spatial tendencies of Airbnb in cities and discussions concerning its effects, inter alia, on gentrification, over-touristification and eventual resident displacement. Recognizing that the majority of extant studies have been conducted either in major cities, which in their own right attract large numbers of visitors or in tourism-intensive smaller communities we chose to investigate what Airbnb growth means for a mid-sized city with a highly diversified economy, which is not yet over-touristified. Our focus was on the Dutch city of Utrecht. Through a geospatial and statistical analysis of AirDNA data, we explored the growth of Airbnbs in the city overall, focusing specifically on the phenomenon's effects on the Lombok neighbourhood, a nascent ‘neo-bohemia’ neighbouring the city-centre tourist bubble. Our analysis reveals that although Airbnb activity in this neighbourhood is relatively recent there are signs suggesting that further touristification of parts of Lombok has ignited increased Airbnb activity. Moreover, there is a distance decay of Airbnb activity as one moves away from the city centre and from established tourism services including restaurants. These findings suggest that in an emerging neo-bohemian space such as Lombok, Airbnb takes on a role as instigator of urban tourism bubble expansion. The study ends with a call for further investigations to better understand the implications expanded Airbnb activity has, among others, on social justice within cities. For example, future investigations could examine the manner in which Airbnbs influence the everyday life of the residents of urban spaces and investigate the conflicts that might arise in Airbnb ghettoes between visitors and locals. 

Scholars have long paid attention to tourism’s impacts. Yet despite the considerable extant body of knowledge relating to tourism’s economic, sociocultural, and environmental effects in numerous destinations, similar mistakes are repeated on a regular basis in localities throughout the world. A downside when it comes to tourism’s effects is that scholars and practitioners commonly take these for granted and rarely examine these critically in a holistic, systems-based approach. After first examining the history of tourism impacts, this paper discusses trends that have influenced this study area before suggesting further research directions. Especially, it highlights the importance of better comprehending how tourism’s effects are shaped by contingent socio-spatial, economic, and regulatory frameworks. Rather than continuing to uncritically laud sustainable tourism’s potential for overcoming the phenomenon’s negative effects, the paper argues for a perspective that focuses on tourism’s role in in overall sustainable development. 

Geographers have certainly contributed actively to the extant scholarly literature relating to tourism work and workers. Nevertheless, with few notable exceptions, most of this research has been piecemeal and case-based demonstrating unawareness of broader theoretical discussions and debates within the emerging sub-field of labour geography. For this special issue, a total of eight papers have been selected, most of which deal to varying degrees with labour mobilities, a theme that mainstream labour geographers themselves have largely avoided in the past. Additionally, the thorny issue of setting the intellectual boundaries between what constitutes work and leisure in contexts such as volunteer tourism is taken up in some of the discussions. Our aim with this special issue is to encourage the development of closer intellectual connections between labour geography and the study of tourism work and workers and their everyday mobilities. 

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.

Research on tourist mobility in combination with the tourists' experiences has been rare to date. Previous studies focusing on the activities of tourists in time and space have most often used the method of time-space diaries. However, an important flaw in this method is that these recordings depend on the respondents' personal observations and notes. This disadvantage is avoided by using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) devices, which record their carriers' movements directly, thus replacing personal notes. This new method was used to study the time-space movements of visitors during the Biathlon World Championships 2008 in Östersund, Sweden. In addition to the GPS devices, questionnaires were used to study the tourists' movements and experiences. In trying to combine methods to support the event analysis, the aim of the study is to evaluate the practicability of GPS devices during an out-door sports event. Movements and experiences in time and space are studied. In order to answer questions regarding the visitors' movements on a macro-level, these methods were combined with bird's-eye view photographs taken of the race arena every minute. The overall results of this study thereby contribute to our understanding of time space movements. The questionnaires offer comprehensive background information about the participants and their experiences, although some modifications will have to be made in future studies. The information provided by the photographs substantially complements the itineraries collected by means of GPS. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

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.

Exclusively planned tourism destinations, such as all-inclusive resorts, gated resort communities, private cruise liner-owned islands and privatized beaches, have increased over the last few decades. Researchers have analyzed these kinds of tourism environments as enclaves, which are typically driven by external forces and actors, strongly supported by globalization and the current neoliberal market economy. Existing research shows that tourism enclaves are characterized by active border-making, power issues and material and/or symbolic separation from the surrounding socio-cultural realities, leading to weak linkages with host communities and the local economy. Tourism enclaves involve power inequalities, injustices and unsustainable practices that often have serious negative impacts on local socio-economic development. The articles of the special issue focus on tourism enclaves in different theoretical and geographical contexts and they contribute to our understanding of how these exclusive spaces are created and transformed and how they shape places and place identities. The individual research articles are contextualized and discussed with the key theoretical perspectives and empirical findings on tourism enclaves. Future research needs include analysis of linkages and flows of labor, goods, ideas and capital in different scales; policymaking, planning and regulations; environmental impacts; and locals’ land and resource access in the respect of bordering, privatization and land grabbing. By focusing on these topics, the tourism industry could be guided towards more responsible and sustainable development path.

Previous research suggests that tourism has a role to play in challenging the destructive dominant narratives of the IsraeliPalestinian context – discourses that traditionally have, and still do, revolve around sectarianism, Othering and violence. Our case study focuses on a hostel in the Palestinian city of Ramallah that boldly attempts to challenge the way tourists view the IsraeliPalestinian context and Palestine as a tourism destination. We examine how the hostel attempts to achieve this and the ways in which being a hostel (as opposed to a hotel) helps its guests with this reframing through in-depth qualitative interviews conducted on-site with members of the hostel management and staff, and through participant observation conducted by the researchers in Ramallah. Findings shed light on the hostel’s ability to enable Israelis and Palestinians to cooperate within tourism, and how Palestine has much more to offer tourists than conflict-related tourism, thus challenging the master narratives of the region which have suggested quite the contrary. A key finding is the hostel’s on-going attempt to remove ignorance about the situation in the region and promote fact-based learning. The results also suggest that the very characteristics of a hostel assist in achieving this mission through the intimate interactions that are inherent in a hostel setting. Hostels can, therefore, be part of a wider approach to ensuring tourism is used to promote alternative, positive narratives of contested space, as opposed to promoting division and externalising the conflict, as is so often the case

Over the last decade, there has been noticeable rise in popularity of all-inclusive holidays. This growth has coincided with the propensity in many destinations to develop tourism enclaves, which can either be purpose-built gated resorts physically isolated from their surrounding community or appear in the form of cruises, which have emerged as a particularly popular form of travel. In this explorative paper, we focus on the marketing of all-inclusive holidays, specifically those occurring in enclaves (including cruise-ships). We investigate to what extent the geographic location of the tourist enclave is an important consideration for the travel industry. In other words, when it comes to all-inclusive holiday products, do the place-based attributes on offer at the destination and the actual location of the holiday matter from the perspective of those who are creating and selling the travel packet? An explorative study of Scandinavian tour operators shows that the local settingof the holiday is in fact a secondary consideration compared to the services and facilities on offer. Thus, there is an overriding tendency to downplay the destination’s place-based attributes and it does not seem so important where the all-inclusive resort is located as long as it is well connected to the market and promises a comfortable holiday to the consumer. Tourism enclaves in the context of placelessness are discussed.

Building on the recent interest among labor geographers for workers’ ability to strategize around their mobility, and tourism researchers’ longstanding examination of mobile tourism workers, this paper explores the mobility agency of differently positioned hospitality workers. The findings suggest that workers are not always ‘strategic’ in relation to labor mobility, and that labor mobility and career paths must be recognized as fragmented, happenstance and erratic. Furthermore, this article argues for an approach to the study of mobile tourism workers that takes the relational as well as temporal aspects into account. This endeavor is in particular guided by the notion of stories-so-far and the understanding of people as both being and becoming. The empirical basis of this paper consists of 22 interviews with hospitality workers in four hotel workplaces in Sweden; the luxury city hotel, the suburban chain hotel, the city chain hotel and the seasonal hotel. Ultimately, I suggest that the multifaceted complex of considerations which workers negotiate, could be conceptualized as the relational spaces of labor (im)mobility.

Tourism is often studied as if it was static. Yet, mobility constitutes an important part of the tourism system. The paper argues that tourists are travelling according to an individual travel rhythm, which can be defined as a travel pattern that tourists relate to, independent from the tourist sites that are visited. It was found out that there are long travel distances on the first and last day of the holiday, that mobility and stationariness are concentrated in time and that tourists along a round tour often spend the longest time in the region with the longest distance to the home region. The paper concludes that a travel rhythm exists, and that it is only partly influenced by the time the tourist spends at the destination, and the previous number of visits. Time geography was applied as underlying theory, and its use can be encouraged in forthcoming tourism studies.