Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Potentials for Path Creating Tourism Development in Rural Sweden

Abstract

This paper investigates the potential of immigrant tourism entrepreneurs to contribute to tourism development and to the goals of regional tourism policy through the creation of new paths of development. Based on qualitative interviews in the county of Gävleborg in Sweden, the paper contributes to understanding the role of immigrant entrepreneurs in the context of public tourism development efforts in a rural region characterized by primary resource based and manufacturing industries. The findings suggest that the strategies and agencies of several immigrant entrepreneurs are in line with the public regional development efforts to achieve new touristic products, growth of foreign visitor numbers and increased cooperation among tourism stakeholders. The paper also highlights the barriers faced by the immigrant entrepreneurs and regional tourism development actors in their efforts to increase professionalization and cooperation among local stakeholders. Finally, we argue that if the potential for immigrant tourism entrepreneurs to contribute with external networks and new knowledge for tourism development should be realised, public efforts to stimulate networking between tourism firms and with other business sectors need to be stable and long term.

International tourism entrepreneurs in Swedish peripheries: Compliance and collision with public tourism strategies

“…Of these European immigrants, 11% were self‐employed, often in tourism (Region Gävleborg, ). In particular the rural parts of the studied municipalities have increasingly welcomed new migrant tourism entrepreneurs from, for example, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy (Tillberg Mattsson & Heldt Cassel, forthcoming).…”

“…As such, they are relatively new tourism destinations located in a peripheral context that has traditionally not been considered as attractive for tourists and lifestyle‐oriented migration and has remained relatively neglected in studies examining the tourism‐migration nexus (Eimermann, ). Immigrant tourism entrepreneurs from Western Europe have emerged as important tourism developers in the case study areas and have contributed to a rise in foreign visitors from their home countries (Tillberg Mattsson & Heldt Cassel, forthcoming). How these new tourism entrepreneurs interact with the public sector in an environment that has traditionally had limited exposure to both tourism and international migration is currently not well understood.…”

“…Many of these European immigrants become self‐employed in tourism as they aim to combine personal lifestyle interests with economic income opportunities, and have thus the potential to contribute to new rural tourism development (Carson & Carson, ; Eimermann, ; Tillberg Mattsson & Heldt Cassel, forthcoming). As rural municipalities seek to attract more international lifestyle migrants and entrepreneurs (Eimermann, ), there is a lack of knowledge about how these newcomers interact with public sector stakeholders for the sake of tourism destination development.…”

“Making do” in rural tourism: the resourcing behaviour of tourism micro-firms

“…The bricolage theory complements the tourism entrepreneurship field with a set of concepts to describe and identify practices. Moreover, it provides a framework, within which observed tourism entrepreneurship phenomena are linked, including: the interpretation of local resources and traditions (Mattsson & Cassel, 2019); storytelling as means of experience enhancement (Anderson, 2000); flexibility to exploit opportunities and adapt to changes (Alsos & Clausen, 2014); going against social norms (Kornilaki et al, 2019) and; community involvement (Bosworth & Farrell, 2011;Saxena et al, 2007).…”

Spatial Concentration of Tourism – a Case of Urban Supremacy

“…Since 2016 a lot of EU funding has been used to support development of new tourist products and facilities (Tirado Ballesteros & Hernández Hernández, 2017). The support for tourist business in the countryside has been seen as an opportunity for communities in remote areas to stimulate in-migration, entrepreneurship, and a gradually more diversified local economy (Eimermann, 2016;Mattsson & Heldt Cassel, 2020;Mottiar, 2016;Thulemark & Hauge, 2014).…”