Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

Although respective research has proliferated, little attention has been given to the processual nature of festivals. By drawing upon the concept of host event zones, we examine how different spectators perceive the development of the heavy metal festival Wacken Open Air (WOA) with respect to the dynamics between the festival as a temporary place in which visitors enjoy spectacle and ritual, a commercial site and the everyday living space of local inhabitants. WOA has grown in 30 years from an initiative by a few friends for devoted metal fans into an internationally renowned music mega-event. WOA represents a consumption mediated ‘peaceful utopia’ where festivalgoers find social meaningfulness in neo-tribes. However, the accelerating mainstream appeal of Wacken Open Air for a non-metal fan audience, which significantly spurt by the media, challenges both regular attendees’ experience of this idealized space and the relationship between the host community and the festival.

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.

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.

This article focused the analysis on social media representations of Sapmi using the hashtags #visit-sapmi and #visitsapmi, which nuance official, top-down versions of the place communicated in other contexts, but simultaneously are more focused on visitors and their experiences. The results show that the making of the Sapmi region as a place and a tourism destination through social media content is an ongoing process of interpretation and reinterpretation of what indigenous Sami culture is and how it connects to specific localities. Future research should look at the broader understanding of places that can be accessed through social media analysis. The main argument is that visual communication is a very important tool when constructing the brand of a destination. Considering the growing role of social media, the process of place-making through visual communication is explored in the case of the destination VisitSapmi, as it is coconstructed in online user generated content (UGC). From a theoretical viewpoint, we discuss the social construction of places and destinations as well as the production of meaning through coconstruction of images and brands in tourism contexts. The focus is on how places are created, branded, and made meaningful by visualizing the place in a framework of tourism experiences, in this case specifically examined through indigenous tourism. We use a content analysis of texts, photographs, and narratives communicated on social media platforms. Regardless of negotiated brand management’s efforts at official marketing, branding, and tourism planning, the evolution of Sapmi as a place to visit in social media has its own logic, full of contradictions and plausible interpretations, related to the uncontrollable and bottom-up processes of UGC.

This chapter adopts a public policy perspective to tourism workforce formation in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The qualitative content analysis of national tourism strategy, planning and policy documents reveals that aspired labour regimes are predominantly characterised by mobility, flexibility and segmentation. While these practices ensure a competitive operational environment, satisfy seasonal employee demand and provide means for states to integrate immigrants into the labour market, negative societal consequences including precariousness, low-quality employment and inequality arise as well. Although all examined documents advocate sustainable production and consumption for Nordic tourism, workforce is essentially not included in sustainability discourses and initiatives.