År 2017 inrättades en pedagogisk meriteringsmodell vid Södertörns högskola.Modellens konstruktion byggde på en komplex ansöknings- och bedömningsprocesssom omfattade flera steg i olika forum: förutom sedvanlig skriftlig ansökan med pedagogiskportfölj som bedömdes av externa sakkunniga ingick även en auskultation ochen intervju som genomfördes av en meriteringskommitté bestående av interna ochexterna ledamöter samt studentrepresentant. Totalt sjutton lärare ansökte om pedagogiskmeritering under två omgångar (2018–2019), utav dessa utnämndes sex läraresom excellenta och fem som meriterade medan sex sökande inte placerades ini meriteringsmodellen. Modellen utvärderades 2019 och 2020, och efter ett uppehållär det sedan 2021 åter i gång i reviderad form. I detta kapitel delar tidigare sökandeoch före detta ledamöter i meriteringskommittén med sig av sina olika erfarenheterav denna modell. Tillsammans redovisar vi diskussioner och argument som föregickmodellen och dess utformning, hur det var att ansöka och bli bedömd inom ramen förmodellen, och hur det var att genomföra bedömningen av de sökandes ansökningari egenskap av ledamot. Vidare diskuteras utmaningar och identifierade problem medmeriteringsmodellen. Avslutningsvis ges en sammanfattning av ändringar i modellensom föranleddes av upplevda problem samt slutsatser från utvärderingarna.

Purpose This study aims to investigate residents’ perception in two Swedish archipelago regions regarding the influx of tourists to their islands with a link to social carrying capacity (SCC). Design/methodology/approach A mixed-methods approach has been used. The data come from 477 complete online surveys with quantitative and qualitative questions, and six in-depth interviews. A content analysis method has been employed. Findings Overtourism in terms of strongly increased number of visitors happens in some of the inhabited islands. Still, residents in these regions show generally a rather moderate attitude towards it although residents of Gothenburg Archipelago perceive more negative impacts. Lack of public ferry boat departures, followed by traffic congestions to the port and on the islands plus crowding on the island have been more frequently mentioned as problematic. Lack of service, sanitation, waste management and respectless tourist behaviour are other problems. Most of the residents believe that tourism would not create a problem for the islands and their inhabitants in the future. Based on the SCC and through the lens of residents, both regions still tolerate to receive more tourists. Research limitations/implications This study has theoretical and practical implications for the society and for the research community. SCC needs to take into account aspects outside the destination, and based on this and other indicators, policy makers should evaluate the destination’s threshold of tourist numbers. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing international research on the topic and increases our understanding of overtourism in cold-water islands with a link to SCC. The absence of tourists’ perspective is a limitation of this study.

Islands, especially small islands, due to their geographic position, are vulnerable for tourism development and are extra sensitive for unsustainable tourism i.e., overtourism (Butler and Dodds, 2022). Sweden has the largest number of islands in the world (Statista, 2024) which makes it relevant for research on overtourism on islands. This study aims to investigate how the risk of overtourism is perceived by people in two major Swedish archipelago regions, Stockholm and Gothenburg. The theoretical point of departure is the Social Carrying Capacity (Brandolini et al., 2004) that put the number of tourists in relationship with the host destination’s tolerance limits and impact perception. The study has a mixed-methods approach based on 477 surveys online with permanent and semi-permanent residents (second-home owners), and six in-depth interviews. The results confirm that although a majority believe that tourism would not create problem for their islands in the future, still a majority believe that number of tourists can become so large during the peak season that it creates a series of problem for them and for the tourists themselves. This skepticism is much higher among residents in Gothenburg islands. The survey respondents and the six interviewees also give suggestions to how make the tourism more sustainable on their islands. A conclusion here is that residents in Gothenburg islands may resist a future tourism development on their islands. 

References

Brandolini, S. M. D. A., & Mosetti, R. (2004), Sustainable tourism development and social carrying capacity: a case-study on the North-Western Adriatic Sea. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 76.  

Butler, R.W. & Dodds, R. (2022), Island Tourism: Vulnerable or Resistant to Overtourism?

Highlights of Sustainability 1, 54–64. https://doi.org/10.54175/hsustain1020005 

Statista (2024), The countries with the most islands. Retrived 2024-01-31 from:

https://www.statista.com/chart/15364/the-estimated-number-of-islands-by-country/

This paper aims at from the perspective of the social exchange theory (SET) gaining an understanding of how promotion of halal concept in Sweden is perceived by Swedish hoteliers. A mixed-methods approach has been used consisting of 62 completed surveys with closed-ended and open-ended questions, follow-up comments and five in-depth interviews with hoteliers in the mid-Sweden region. Content analysis has been employed. Three categories of meanings are the main findings: general perception, safeguarding Swedish secular values and financially unjustifiable have been discovered. Most of the respondents have been sceptical towards halal and Muslim-friendly hotel concepts due to financial and cultural challenges these two concepts have for the Swedish tourism and hotel industries. Based on the SET, this entails more costs than benefits and is especially at odds with Swedish-rooted secular values. This study provides practical implications and increased knowledge for tourism stakeholders including hotels in Sweden. This is one of the very few studies on halal tourism in Scandinavia and the first Scandinavian study on hoteliers' attitudes towards halal tourism.

Introduction and literature review

Overtourism as a sustainability sissue for different tourism stakeholers (Milano et al, 2022;Santos-Rojo et al., 2023) inside and outside destinations has been very explored duringrecent decade. Most earlier studies on the topic have either touched upon localstakeholders on the destination and locals‘ tourismphobia has been frequently mentionedby authors (see e.g. Verissimo et al., 2020; Yrigoy et al., 2023). In the literature, oertourismhas been associated with seasonality, i.e. it happens almost entirely in a peak season(mostly during the summer) and not year round (see e.g. Yrigoy et al., 2023; Ghaderi et al.,2022). From initially having had a focus on some specific coastal European urbandestinations such as Barcelona, Venice and Dubrovnik in many studies (see e.g. Verissimoet al., 2020) the recent years‘ research also has included rural remote places worldwide forinvestigations (see e.g. Eckert et al., 2019; Ghaderi et al., 2022; Lundmark et al, 2020) as wellas new urban destinations that earlier have been unknown as places for overtourism (seee.g. Fedyk et al., 2023).Most earlier attitude investigations on overtourism have had a focus on the destinationsand their local residents and stakeholders (see.e.g. Kim and Kang, 2020; Kuscer and Mihalic,2019). Despites few studies during recent years (e.g. Kainthola et al., 2021)tourists‘ perspective and attitudes on the issue has been less visible in the research.Especially, a lack of knowledge on travellers comming from tourist generating nations orregions and their attitudes towards overtourism in city destinations has been obviouslyinvisible. Thus, the purpose of this research is to fill this gap for Sweden and Swedishtravellers to city destionations. This will be our contribution to existing body of researchon the issue. Following research questions will be answered in this paper:–How Swedish travellers define, perceive and reason around the phenomenon ofoertourism in city destinations?132–What kind of solutions to the problem is suggested by them?

MethodologyThis study is explorative in its nature and is based an online survey. The authors initiallyadopted a predominantly quantitative approach to reach a large number of respondents tocater to representativeness (Bryman 2016). Thus, several questions and comment optionswere also purposely given to the respondents to get deeper insigts of their attitudes andperceptions of the topic. The survey that contained 15 questions was firstly screened forethical issues by the host university. The authors guaranteed total anonymity to therespondents through considering the European GDPR (General Data ProtectionRegulation) that concerns protect of personal issues in research. Then the survey waspublished at tens of Swedish social forums (public and private pages on Linkedin andFacebook). After two months (February- March 2023) and several reminders we got 370completed surveys.

Preliminary Findings

A look at the sample shows that 55% of the respondens (202 individuals) are women andthe rest are men. A predominat majority of them (74%) are older than 40 year and they areeither employed (56%), retired (31%), students (9%) or others (4%) and a predominantmajority (83%) of them has postseconday/academic education. Over 70% of them state thatthey travel abroad twice or more each year, and 54% has travelled to abroad more than 16times during last ten years. A majority answers that they have good knowledge onovertourism and almost all of them define the term with their own words. Also theydescribe typical examples of situations of ourtourism that they have been witnessses to.Based on their experiences they mention many urban destinations in the world that theyperceived as places with ourtourism. This includes already known places as well as notexpected places, major metropolitain areas as well as small less known towns and specificareas or districts in urban regions. 75% of the respondents beleive that overtourism is aproblem and they point to many enviromental issues, tentions, crimiality, increased prices,negative tourism experiences, etcetera that are linked to overtourism. 25% of therespondents that would not consider it as a problem reason among other things thatovertourism is a temporary phenomenon during short time of peak season, that this is goodfor the destinations economy and standard of living, it facilitates cultural encounters,etcetera. Those that beleive overtourism is a problem suggest as solution more research,knowledge to the general public, quota system, regulations, restrictions, seasonprolongation, etcetera.133

Preliminary Conclusions

The respondents in this research point to a very complex phenomenon with multifacettedproblems as the consequence and that also needs to be solved in a multifacetted way withdifferent actors/stakeholder both in tourist generating regions and in tourist receivingregions i.e. destinations exposed by overtourism. As a part of the respondents mean, onecannot prevent people to travel but people can get important and necessary help beforedeparture but also at the destinations to enjoy the travel without being harmful tothemselves, to other tourists, residents and to the sensitive historical sites and naturalenvironments.

References

Bryman, A. (2016). Social research methods. Oxford, England: Oxford university press.Eckert, C., Zacher, D., Pechlaner, H., Namberger, P., & Schmude, J. (2019). Strategies andmeasures directed towards overtourism: a perspective of European DMOs. InternationalJournal of Tourism Cities, 5(4), 639–655.Fedyk, W., Sltysik, M., Rolczynski, T., Taheri, B., Borzyszkowski, J., and Okumus, F.(2023), Overtourism in a City Destination from the Perspective of Entrepreneurs:Evidence from Wroclaw, Poland, Journal of Environmental Management and Tourism 14 (2),pp. 442- 457.Ghaderi, Z, Hall, M.C., and Ryan, C. (2022), Overtourism, residents and Iranian ruralvillages: Voices from a developing country, Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Vol.37, 100487.Kainthola, S., Tiwari, P., & Chowdhary, N. R. (2021). Overtourism to zero tourism:Changing tourists’ perception of crowding post COVID-19. Journal of Spatial andOrganizational Dynamics, 9(2), 115-137.Kim, S., and Kang, Y. (2020), Why do residents in an overtourism destination developanti-tourist attitudes? An exploration of residents’ experience through the lens of thecommunity-based tourism, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research Vol. 25, Issue 8, pp. 858-876.Kuscer, K., and and Mihalic, T. (2019), Residents’ Attitudes towards Overtourism fromthe Perspective of Tourism Impacts and Cooperation—The Case of Ljubljana,Sustainability 11, 1823.Lundmark, L., Müller, D. K., & Bohn, D. (2020). Arctification and the paradox ofovertourism in sparsely populated areas. Dipping in to the north: Living, working andtraveling in sparsely populated areas, 349-371.134Milano, C., Novelli, M., and Cheer, J.M. (2022), Overtourism. In Buhalis, D (Ed),Encyclopedia of Tourism Management and Marketing, pp. 413-416. Elgar onlineSantos-Rojo, C., Llopis-Amorós, M., and García-García, J.M. (2023), Overtourism andsustainability: A bibliometric study (2018–2021), Technological Forecasting & Social Change188, 122285.Veríssimo, M., Moraes, M., Breda, Z., Guizi, A., & Costa, C. (2020). Overtourism andtourismphobia: A systematic literature review. Tourism: An International InterdisciplinaryJournal, 68(2), 156-169.Yrigoy, I., Horrach, P., Escudero, L., & Mulet, C. (2023). Co-opting overtourism: tourismstakeholders’ use of the perceptions of overtourism in their power struggles. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 1-17.

In the wake of covid-19 many Swedes chose stay-cationing as a substitute for foreign travel, due totravel restrictions and risks related to the pandemic during summer 2020. In many ways, this relievedsome of the economic pressures on parts of the otherwise hard hit tourism industry in Sweden, as e.g.the archipelago and many other rural areas have peak season during the summer, and the virus spreaddiminished during summer due to among other things more outdoor activities, making it less risky tochoose outdoor attractions. This has, however, lead to some cases of rather unanticipated over-tourism,as in some cases, infrastructure such as road size is not calibrated for the level of demand, and e.g. asunny day the road to Gålö was jammed, so that a trip usually taking 15 minutes by car took 3 ½ hours,and as a result of people exploring outdoors to a larger extent due to the pandemic, the carrying capacityof many nature reserves and some national parks has been reported to be threatened. As vaccinationprogrammes are being executed there is reason to believe that some going back to normal may beexpected, but there is reason not to discard the increased pressure on nature-based attractions asincreased knowledge of domestic visitor attractions may be assumed to render increased demand.Under the adage ‘build back better’ I intend to investigate the degree of overtourism experienced inarchipelago settings of Stockholm County, through interviews with residents and nature preservationsoriented NGOs.

This article implies a qualitative methodological approach and has a focus on the local tourism employees in Dubrovnik and their perception of overtourism. The empirical data are based on 12 days’ field observation in July 2018, and 18 e-mail interviews with local tourism employees. The data analysis method has been thematic analysis. The interviewees show a high level of awareness and concern about the problem. Overcrowding, traffic congestion, various physical damages, displacement of locals in Old Town, low quality of tourist experiences and lower quality of life for locals, increased prices are among problems caused by overtourism in Dubrovnik. Factors related to seasonality, physical geographic conditions, cruise ships are the most problem makers and the interviewees prefer tourists that stay overnight. Their most frequent solution suggestions are reduction of the number of cruise ships followed by stricter rules of the establishment and of quality for accommodations, caterings and shops.

Over-tourism has become a frequently used term in Urban Tourism research, during last years. By it means over-saturation of tourists (e.g. Stanchev, 2017) i.e. when the number of tourists at a certain time and at a certain place exceeds powerfully the number of locals in the place (see e.g. Artal-Tur et al, 2018). Such situation creates a series of problems for the host destinations (Postma and Schmuecker, 2017) because of the limited service facilities available (Butler, 2018). The pressure on the host destination results in conflict and tension among hosts and tourists, and in long term antagonism, and tourism phobia among locals (Alexis, 2017). The overall aim of this research is to get a deeper understanding of Dubrovnik’s tourism employees’ perception of Over-tourism in their town. The chosen method has been field observation during peak season (July 2018) and 18 email- interviews with local tourism employees between 2018-2019.   Results  The employees who answered to 14 questions have positions such as manager, receptionist, owner, and represent different tourism and hospitality sectors like hotels and restaurants, tourist bureaus, etc. They have been working within tourism industry between 3 and 30 years. They show small difference in their views on low- respectively high season of tourism in the town. They define Over- tourism in general, believe it exists in Dubrovnik in some short periods, and describe in detail how and when it happens there. The reason behind Over-tourism in Dubrovnik is summarized by them in big demand that exceeds the supply side i.e. too many tourists by ships, aircrafts, cars and buses arriving at the same time in peak season. They claim that the Over-tourism creates a series of problems such as traffic, damage and pollution, and confirm that the local authorities are aware of the problems. A powerful reduction of number of cruisers, better management, organization and schedule of arrivals, better information to tourists, reduction of taxis from rest of the country, forbid foreigners come by car to the city, etc. are among their own suggestions to solutions for the problems. Some of them talk about attracting quality/luxury/elite tourists instead of mass tourists. Several of them also confirm that the local tourism industry firstly tries to reduce the number of cruisers and partly flights, and then find a better coordination of activities, and other regulations for people coming by cars. The interviewees prefer mostly tourists coming by charter flights, then cruise tourists specially luxury such, and they believe that Dubrovnik and its surrounding region is not at all suitable for car transport and cartourists.

By conducting a comparative qualitative and systematic study of the local (island) pre-conditions for creating sustainable socio-economic development through entrepreneurship, here defined as a process of identifying, evaluating, and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities, this study aims to shed light on entrepreneurial responses to challenges and opportunities on three islands in the Stockholm Archipelago and how context influences these responses.