Jan K. Staunstrup

Trade and value developments in the Danish second-home sector: implications for tourism policies

The 220,000 second homes in Denmark are very important tourism and leisure resources. This study documents the development in property values and the trade in second homes during the period 1994–2008 and links property values to socio-economic characteristics, events in the lives of the owners and geography. The study finds that ownership of second homes is still fairly well distributed socially, but that there is a clear trend towards the exclusion of those with lower incomes and of families with children. The average age of owners is rising. Second homes play a subtle role not only as holiday resources, but also in the combined housing economy and investment of Danish families. Indirectly, the developments in the trade and value of second homes have implications for future tourism policies. The continuous availability of privately owned second homes on the rental market is of immense importance for the attractiveness of the Danish tourism product in general, and for specific destinations in particular. Rising property prices in the years up to 2008 and a lack of incentives to upgrade the standard of these houses may compromise mainstream Danish tourism policies.

Identifying Land Use and Land-Use Changes (LULUC): A Global LULUC Matrix

Land use and land-use changes (LULUC) information is essential to determine the environmental impacts of anthropogenic land-use and conversion. However, existing data sets are either local-scale or they quantify land occupation per land-use type rather than providing information on land-use changes. Here we combined the strengths of the remotely sensed MODIS land cover data set and FAOSTAT land-use data to obtain a database including a collection of 231 country-specific LULUC matrixes, as suggested by the IPCC. We produced two versions of each matrix: version 1, identifying forestland based on canopy cover criteria; version 2, distinguishing primary, secondary, planted forests and permanent crops. The outcome was a first country-based, consistent set of spatially explicit LULUC matrixes. The database facilitates a more holistic assessment of land-use changes, quantifying changes that occur between land classes from 2001 to 2012, providing crucial information for assessing environmental impacts caused by LULUC. The data allow global-scale land-use change analyses, requiring a distinction between land types based not only on land cover but also on land uses. The spatially explicit data set may also serve as a starting point for further studies aiming at determining the drivers of land-use change supported by spatial statistical modeling.