Mid Sweden University

Authenticity can probably be seen as one of the most commonly used concepts in tourism. The layman talk of authenticity is usually tinged by phrases such as that things should be ‘kept authentic’ or this and that ‘did not feel authentic’. From an academic viewpoint, the initial development of the concept was a dichotomy, either something is authentic or not. The following phase is to actually conceptualise authenticity as constructed, depending on ‘the eyes of the beholder’. Later conceptualisations of authenticity describe it as existential and mostly connected to the experience of the tourist (or the practitioner) no matter where or how this experience takes place. In between there has also been a discussion of staged authenticity and hyperreality, in which the authentic does not really exist. It is either something that is organised for the tourists or simply fake. These different ways to theorise authenticity are not mutually exclusive and not entirely in chronological order. The studies that have adopted these concepts have used them in several situations and even combined them. Since there are a lot of parallels and overlapping between how the terms have been used, this chapter will be centred around two main questions: how do the tourists experience authenticity? And how do the practitioners and the locals experience it? 

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. 

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).

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.

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.

Pets are increasingly being recognized as family members, leaving their owners with difficult decisions about how to care for them during periods of travel. Tourists can either travel with their pets, leave them in the care of family or friends, or use a paid service provided by an animal boarding facility or “pet hotel.” We empirically explore the latter option and theorize pet hotels as enablers of tourist mobility in tourist-generating regions. User-generated content (UGC) consisting of textual pet owner reviews on Google Reviews and Facebook from boarding kennels and catteries across six countries are analyzed using qualitative content analysis. We identify three key themes revealing what users of these services emphasize in their reviews: first, catteries and boarding kennel enable pet owners to travel; second, these facilities alleviate tourists’ feelings of guilt or worry; third, pets are imagined to be enjoying their own holidays while at the facilities. This research note sheds light on a growing cultural phenomenon relating to tourism among a globally mobile population for whom pets substitute or extend their human families. 

Values are important in education and their role in university studies is central in tourism teaching as well. How values are communicated to students is an important aspect of our axiological approach. In order to promote a fruitful approach to values in the students, this conceptual paper discusses the role of theoretical knowledge in achieving empowerment for the students based on the tenets of critical realism and on Gramsci’s philosophy. As students acquire disciplinary theoretical knowledge, they also develop the tools to make ethical evaluations. Knowledge is meant as the best possible understanding that we have of the world at the moment and it is always possible to achieve a better explanation of a phenomenon. Through an approach based on theoretical knowledge integrated with other creative ways to teach, the students can develop an ethical sensitivity and a flexible set of skills for both the workplace and academia. 

This book examines science fiction's theoretical and ontological backgrounds and how science fiction applies to the future of tourism. It recreates and invents the future of tourism in a creative and disruptive manner, reconceptualising tourism through alternative and quantum leap thinking that go beyond the normative or accepted view of tourism. The chapters, focusing on areas such as disruption, sustainability and technology, draw readers into the unknown future of tourism – a future that may be disruptive, dystopian or utopian. The book brings a new theoretical paradigm to the study of tourism in a post COVID-19 world and can be used to explore, frame and even form the future of tourism. It will capture the imagination and inspire readers to address tourism's challenges of tomorrow.