Non-sticky Tourism Business and Double Hypermobilities

ABSTRACT

Tourists are becoming more mobile, and so are tourism businesses. Based on geographical territoriality research, this article examines business types, with a particular focus on ‘mobile businesses’ and ‘double hyper-mobile businesses’, the latter more de-territorialized than the former, as both enterprises and tourists are simultaneously on the move. The study provides an inventory of mobile touristic services. Narratives acquired from qualitative interviews performed throughout a collaborative action research project illuminate that mobilities of tourism services are matters of both pragmatic economic calculation, business relational issues, and negotiated space resource acquisition. The entrepreneurial stage, ambition, and resource constellation explain how, why, and when tourism businesses prefer to work in sticky or slippery environments. There is an increasing need for tourism actors and planning authorities to address the features of hypermobilities and to ensure to harvest benefits of the moving without compromising the coherent livability of communities and tourism locations.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobilities paradigm
• tourism enactment
• entrepreneurship
• territoriality
• service en route

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Regional Development Fund.