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Family business research has identified contributing factors to the dominance of family firms in the tourism industry worldwide. The tourism literature, however, has focused more on start-ups than ...

Sammendrag: Hovudtema for avhandlinga er korleis ulike typar familiebedrifter i norsk distriktsreiseliv, gardsturisme og distriktshotell, møter eksterne og interne utfordringar for å sikre bedrifta sin vidare eksistens. Tre artiklar ligg til grunn for avhandlinga: den første artikkelen handlar om norsk gardsturisme og dei to siste artiklane om familieeigde distriktshotell. Det overordna forskingsspørsmålet er: Korleis forstå overlevingsevna til ulike typar familiebedrifter i norsk distriktsreiseliv ved hjelp av omgrepet «family firm resilience»? Kva rolle spelar omgrepet «embeddedness» for å forstå overlevingsevna? Avhandlinga har eit ressursperspektiv. Teoretisk trekker avhandlinga vekslar på omgrep frå forsking på turisme og resiliens, på familiebedrifter generelt, meir spesifikt ved bruk av omgrepet «family firm resilience». I tillegg vert bruken av ressursar i den rurale konteksten, bygdesamfunnet, teoretisert ved å ta i bruk ulike forståingar av omgrepet «embeddedness», frå forskingsfeltet ruralt entreprenørskap. Metodologisk har avhandlinga eit kvalitativt forskingsdesign og er basert på djupneintervju med tilbydarsida i norsk distriktsreiseliv. Eigarane av gardsturisme-bedrifter er intervjua, medan intervju av to generasjonar hotelleigarar ligg til grunn for hotellstudien. Hovudkonklusjonane er at bedriftene i hovudsak trekker vekslar på menneskelege og sosiale ressursar i eigarfamiliane, men dei trekker også vekslar på ressursar som ligg utanfor sjølve eigarfamiliane: menneskelege, sosiale, fysiske og immaterielle ressursar på gardsbruka og i bygdene der bedriftene er lokaliserte. Funna viser dermed at overlevingsevna (family firm resilience) til familiebedriftene ikkje vert sikra gjennom familiekapital aleine, men at familiebedriftene også trekker vekslar på ulike måtar å vere sosialt og stadleg integrert i lokalsamfunnet på. Konklusjonen viser også at for begge typane familiebedrifter inneber ein tilstand av balanse (equilibrium); Både å oppretthalde konkurranseevna til turistbedrifta og å balansere omsyna mellom familie og bedrifta. Samtidig er det ein vesentleg skilnad mellom bedriftene når det gjeld motiv og målsetting, noko som kjem til syne ved at gardsturisme-bedriftene reduserer turistaktivitetane dersom det oppstår interessekonflikter mellom omsynet til familie og til bedrift. I distriktshotella er det eigarfamiliane sine behov som må vike for bedrifta sine. Summary: The thesis investigates how owners of family businesses in Norwegian rural tourism meet external and internal challenges to ensure the long-term survival of the family businesses. The first article is a study of Norwegian farm tourism, while the two other articles focus on rural hotels in Norway. The thesis adopts a resource perspective and explores the ways in which different types of family businesses within Norwegian rural tourism, farm tourism businesses and rural hotels, draw upon internal and external resources to meet external and internal challenges to ensure their survival. The qualitative methodology is based upon in-depth interviews with the suppliers within Norwegian rural tourism. Theoretically the thesis draws upon three research fields: tourism and resilience, family businesses in general and especially the concept of family firm resilience, and finally, rural entrepreneurship and specifically the understandings of embeddedness. The main conclusion is as follows. When it comes to understanding the survival skills of the family businesses in terms of «family firm resilience» and «embeddedness», these two concepts have revealed that the survival skills of the family firms are not necessarily secured only through family capital, but also through different forms of social embeddedness, as well as placial embeddedness in the rural surroundings. The conclusion also reveals that to both types of family businesses, balance – or equilibrium – implies two things: securing the family firms’ competitiveness as well as balancing the concerns for the family with those of the business.

Over the past two decades, rural tourism has increasingly been seen as a competitive advantage for the Norwegian tourism industry. The rural tourism sector was, by the turn of the millennium, characterised by tougher market environments, a demand for more coordinated and improved quality products, strong competition, ageing infrastructures, and unfulfilled expectations. The research reported here investigates Norwegian farm tourism operators and discusses their strategies in product development, the challenges, and the solutions. Based on a number of in-depth interviews with tourist enterprises in two Norwegian rural areas, the authors argue that Norwegian farm tourism is, in many ways, in line with the foreseen development. The strategies of the Norwegian farm tourism operators are: varied products, cooperation, and personal presence. Their motives are both market oriented and based on farm resources and household concerns, but when the chosen strategies lead to conflicts between two concerns, th...

There is academic, political and industry consensus that tourism should achieve greater sustainability, a process requiring stakeholder involvement on various levels. It is less clear how significant actor numbers can be mobilized to pro-actively work towards sustainability goals, achieving significant systemic change. This paper explores the transition management literature to provide a theoretical framework for stakeholder involvement and policy implementation processes in sustainable tourism. A selection of sustainable tourism initiatives by global tourism and transport organizations are reviewed and discussed with regard to the mechanisms and approaches used to involve stakeholders, and their success or otherwise in achieving change. This is compared to the results of a national tourism sustainability initiative by the Norwegian government initiated in 2010. The initiative brought together 62 leading stakeholders from all tourism interests, except airlines, for a series of six intensive discussion and goal setting sessions. Evaluation shows that stakeholder awareness and knowledge appear to have improved substantially, and potential government policy initiatives legitimized – though few tangible results can yet be seen. Overall results suggest that transition management provides a valuable theoretical framework to understand change processes, while the dialetics of stakeholder involvement and policy implementation are an essential precondition for successful governance.

The article presents the results of two succeeding Norwegian studies on the environmental impacts of leisure consumption. The first study presents data on the total consumption of leisure products and services by Norwegians, showing that leisure consumption increases more than everyday consumption, the most energy-intensive leisure activities increase the most, leisure activities have become more dependent on transportation and that leisure activities are to an increasing extent based on more material consumption. The second study consists of case studies from four leisure activities in Norway that have experienced the greatest increases in consumption over the last two decades: outdoor recreation clothing, cabins, leisure boating and leisure transportation. The case studies show that the problems connected with reducing the environmental impacts of leisure consumption are numerous and complex, and cannot be solved alone by technological improvements in leisure products and services. We conclude that new ...