Tourism, Mobilities, and Development in Sparsely Populated Areas

Tourism ‘mobilities’ are not restricted to the movement of tourists between places of origin and destinations. Particularly in more peripheral, remote, or sparsely populated destinations, workers and residents are also likely to be frequently moving between locations. Such destinations attract seasonal or temporary residents, sometimes with only loose ties to the tourism industry. These flows of mobile populations are accompanied by flows of other resources – money, knowledge, ideas and innovations – which can be used to help the economic and social development of the destination.

This book examines key aspects of the human mobilities associated with tourism in sparsely populated areas, and investigates how new mobility patterns inspired by technological, economic, political, and social change provide both opportunities and risks for those areas. Examples are drawn from the northern peripheries of Europe and the north of Australia, and the book provides a framework for continuing research into the role that tourism and ‘new mobilities’ can play in regional development in these locations.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism.

Doris A. Carson is based in the Department of Geography and Economic History at Umea University, Sweden. She has conducted research into how tourism sectors in peripheral destinations in Australia, Scotland, Canada, and Sweden can act as ‘systems of innovation’.

Dean B. Carson is a Professor based at the Arctic Research Centre, Umea University, Sweden. He specialises in researching the impact of migration and mobility on the human geography of sparsely populated areas.

Linda Lundmark is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Economic History at Umea University, Sweden. She has researched issues around tourism and labour migration, nature-based tourism, and post-productive change and regional development in rural Sweden.