International winter tourism entrepreneurs in northern Sweden: understanding migration, lifestyle, and business motivations

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the migration, lifestyle, and business motivations of international winter tourism entrepreneurs who have moved to a “low-amenity” rural area in northern Sweden. Low-amenity areas are characterised by economic decline, outmigration, and limited tourism development. Based on qualitative interviews, the research applied a multi-dimensional framework to the study of migrant tourism entrepreneurship, considering personal migration drivers, the value of location-specific amenities, desired consumptive experiences, previous familiarity with the destination, business-related goals, as well as temporal and technological dimensions of mobility and self-employment. The findings suggest that the northern winter and the undeveloped low-amenity character of the place were key factors in migration choices. Consumptive lifestyle interests around counter-urban living and winter outdoor hobbies were prominent, yet there was diversity in terms of business aspirations and considerable seasonal lifestyle–business balancing. Despite noticeable contributions to winter tourism development in the low-amenity north, the study also identified a sense of temporariness and expected onward migration among migrants, raising questions about the longevity of this development.

KEYWORDS:

• International lifestyle migration
• lifestyle tourism entrepreneur
• winter tourism
• low-amenity rural area
• northern Sweden

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work presented in this article was supported by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS (Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas) through funding for the projects “Mobilising the rural: Post-productivism and the new economy” and “Modelling demographic change in small villages of Sweden’s sparsely populated north” (award ids – 2015-260 and 2011-72).