Strategies in Norwegian Farm Tourism: Product Development, Challenges, and Solutions

Abstract

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, the household concern dominates.

Key Words:

• farm tourism
• product development
• strategies
• motives
• challenges
• Norway

Acknowledgements

This article is written within the research project Second Generation Rural tourism (2011–2015) and financed by the Norwegian Research Council under Grant Natur og Næring, project number 208054/O10, Sogn og Fjordane County council, Sør-Trøndelag County council, County Governor in Sogn og Fjordane and County Governor in Sør-Trøndelag. The authors also want to thank Katrina Rønningen, Centre for Rural Research, Norway, for contributing in the data collection and in the analysis, and Bernard Lane, Sheffield Hallam University, UK, for contributing to the project in its initial phase and for coining the term “Second generation rural tourism”, which inspired this project to look more closely at the new challenges of Norwegian farm tourism.

Disclosure statement

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