Susanna Heldt Cassel

World Heritage and Tourism Innovation: Institutional Frameworks and Local Adaptation

Abstract The interest in heritage as a tool for destination development has recently been substantial in Sweden, especially when it comes to receiving World Heritage (WH) status. The possibility of using the WH brand in developing tourism products and marketing destinations has great potential for many heritage destinations. The aim of this paper is to discuss innovation processes within heritage tourism. The focus is on the role of WH status as a factor influencing innovative practices at different Swedish WH sites. This study uses qualitative methods, such as interviews and analysis of written material from five selected Swedish WH sites, with in-depth analysis of the Great Copper Mountain in Falun. To what extent does WH status change the preconditions for tourism development at WH destinations? What is the role of institutional frameworks in this process? This paper will show how WH may facilitate tourism innovation mainly through developing new products and marketing strategies, but also by institutional innovations concerning new forms of collaboration and networks.

Heritage Tourism and Inherited Institutional Structures: The Case of Falun Great Copper Mountain

Abstract This study focuses on the local resource that a mine represents and analyses the role of stakeholders and institutions during the development of heritage tourism. The paper aims to examine the role of stakeholders and their interpretation of heritage in the management process in the case of the Great Copper Mountain World Heritage Site in Falun, Sweden. The paper focuses on local strategies for developing heritage tourism in which concepts of institutions and path dependency in terms of inherited social and economic structures can shed light on more general local development processes. The empirical material consists of interviews, official documents and marketing material. While the goal of many of the interviewed stakeholders is to promote tourism development, a common view is often lacking in terms of what the tourist product is or how the role of the World Heritage Site can be interpreted with regard to tourism activities. There are also sceptical voices regarding the development of activities and attractions devoted to entertainment without educational purposes. The marketing texts focus on the landscape and the 17th century system of production, which further supports the view that the preservation of the remnants from this period will be prioritised in contemporary management policies. The present paper interprets this concept as an indication of the strength of the institutions and ideas that promote the importance of education and historical facts related to mining communicated by former mining‐related stakeholders as well as by heritage organisations, including UNESCO.

Performing Gender and Rurality in Swedish Farm Tourism

Abstract The diversification of farming towards more service-intensive businesses enables innovation and competitiveness within the farming sector. However, running a hospitality and tourism business significantly differs from farming and requires different competencies. It entails face-to-face customer relationships and creating experiences based on the identity of the place and the entrepreneurs. By inviting in guests/customers, the farm is transformed from primarily an agricultural production place to one that produces experiences and services. This paper aims to analyse and discuss how women engaged in farm tourism perform rural and gender identities by producing experiences and services, and how these performances may reproduce or challenge traditional rural and gender identities. The study is based on interviews with women in the two regions Dalarna and Uppland who run tourism businesses on working farms. The interviews show that the entrepreneurs must cope with tensions and conflicts between agricultural production and tourism at the farms in terms of not only practical work and duties, but also how gendered farming identities are performed.

Women tourism entrepreneurs: doing gender on farms in Sweden

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how gender is “done” on farms in Sweden in the context of increased tourism and hospitality activities. The authors seek to investigate how gender is done vis-a-vis women’s farm tourism entrepreneurship. They seek to answer the questions: What has motivated the farm women to become tourism entrepreneurs? How are the gendered divisions of labor changed through women starting businesses? How does the gendered associated symbolism, as well as the identities, change? Design/methodology/approach – Research has indicated that introducing tourism entrepreneurship at farms may challenge established gender relations, as many of these entrepreneurs are women. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with 15 women farm tourism entrepreneurs in central Sweden. Findings – The analysis suggests that the gendered divisions of labor are not changed through the interviewed women starting tourism businesses. The authors conclude that the women build their entrepreneurship ...

The Legacy of Mining : Visual Representations and Narrative Constructions of a Swedish Heritage Tourist Destination

This paper examines the marketing and management efforts that have been undertaken to make the Falun World Heritage Site a successful tourist destination in terms of hegemonic, visual representatio ...

Career paths and mobility in the Swedish hospitality sector

ABSTRACT How career paths are interpreted and conceptualised by hospitality workers and industry representatives remains underexplored in current literature. In this paper, we highlight and discuss sector-specific and contextual factors that influence the possibility of establishing a career within the Swedish hospitality sector. The paper uses interviews with hotel managers, who describe and discuss motivations and choices made throughout their own careers and interviews with young (former) seasonal hospitality workers who describe and reflect on their future plans and work-life experience. Additional data are derived through observations at national seminars and meetings for representatives from the Swedish tourism and hospitality industry, where issues of competence and careers were discussed. The findings indicate that the shaping of career paths within the hospitality sector is influenced by two normative and discursively produced ‘truths’ about career paths in the hospitality sector: the importance of internal knowledge transfer and the importance of high mobility. These narratives impose expectations on individuals to be mobile, to change jobs frequently and to work their way from the bottom-up within the industry, and are based on a presumption of a diversified and dense local hospitality labour market. However, since the conditions are different due to contextual, geographical features of labour market size and structure, attractiveness of places, etc., these expectations are difficult to fulfil in places other than in larger urban areas. These normative assumptions of what a successful hospitality career is also have consequences for the development of the hospitality sector as external influences of competence from other sectors and higher education are not seen as valuable, which makes the sector self-contained and not open to external, potentially innovative knowledge.

Tourism development in the Russian Arctic : Reproducing or challenging the hegemonic masculinities of the frontier

The image of the Arctic can be understood as a part of a larger discourse of the north as an uncivilized, untamed frontier, not suitable or accessible for modern, urban people, but a place for stro ...

Destination image in Uzbekistan – heritage of the Silk Road and nature experience as the core of an evolving Post Soviet identity

The purpose of this research is to analyze the destination image of Uzbekistan presented by the DMO and the destinations images emerging from user generated content in social media posts. In this s...

Performing identity and culture in Indigenous tourism – a study of Indigenous communities in Québec, Canada

The aim of this paper is to analyze the ways in which Indigenous tourism affects representations of identity and culture, and how tourism practices are described, negotiated and related to developm ...The aim of this paper is to analyze the ways in which Indigenous tourism affects representations of identity and culture, and how tourism practices are described, negotiated and related to development in Indigenous communities. This aim is met through a study, including interviews and observations in Québec, Canada, where Indigenous tourism has received increased attention and economic importance in recent years. Tourism is put forward as positive for economic as well as social and cultural development, through alternative income opportunities and the revalorization of traditions and cultural practices. Individuals from four different ethnic nations were involved in the study: Innu (formerly known as Montagnais), Cree (Eeyou), Wôbanaki (Abénakis) and Hurons (Wendat). From the interviews conducted for this study, we find that Indigenous tourism influences the ways in which individuals see themselves, and how they perceive their identity and culture. Through the production of Indigenous tourism products, the notion of authenticity is challenged, and performed in ways that benefit contemporary life within the communities. But these performances may also reproduce or challenge traditional Indigenous identities, and fuel tensions and conflicts between different groups within the communities.