Providers of open access tourism products have to rely on visitors complying to their funding model. Visitor monitoring is often seen as cumbersome and challenging considering geographic remoteness and multiple entry and exit point. Within a Swedish context, funding models are also restricted due to the Public Right of Access to nature (allemansrätten). Swedish trail providers, offering activities such as cross-country skiing, are therefore dependent on the tourist’s willingness to pay (WtP) for trail passes and their compliance to the presented funding model. Understanding visitors’ perception and acceptance (or disapproval) to a funding model of an open access tourism product becomes crucial for trail providers to develop an attractive trail product. With an inductive approach including semi-structured interviews, this study aims to develop a better understanding of visitors’ perception of trail pass systems and possibly identify motivations why visitors comply/ not comply to a trail pass system for cross-country skiing in two Swedish tourist resorts. With so far mainly quantitative studies about cross-country skiers’ compliance to funding models, a qualitative approach provides more in-depth knowledge and fills a significant gap in the literature.Participants are recruited via a preceding survey with the incentive of a gift voucher to participate in a follow-up interview. Qualitative content analysis is used to analyse 15 interviews with focus on visitors’ perception of the funding models and reasons for compliance to those. Insights about drivers for non-compliance are seen as especially relevant for this study.Limitations in terms of possible social desirability bias and language barriers during the interviews are discussed and assessed.