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This paper aims to reveal the similarities and variances in activity patterns among those traveling alone and with a different mix of travel companions in the context of nature-based tourism.

In this research, five different travel parties (alone, with small children, with older children, with friends and with partner) and 25 tourist activities are research variables. The study selects Norway as the destination country in relation to activity patterns. Its data, collected from a questionnaire survey of residents from the United Kingdom, Sweden and France, contain 6,935 responses.

The study finds that traveling with a partner is the preferred mix for traveling to Norway. A correspondence analysis on activity patterns reveals that traveling with friends and traveling with a partner show some similarities in activity patterns, where the other three groups prove notable differences in activity patterns compared to these two groups.

The study empirically tests the relationship between the mix of travel party and the choice of tourist activity in the context of nature-based tourism in Norway. It provides new market insights that can assist tourism businesses to further tailor products and services to traveling public involving different types of companions.

The present work studies hiking as tourist activity and its physical and mental benefits for the tourist. In particular, the study explores the relative importance of these benefits among the hikers and compare the importance with the tourists’ perceived experience, that is evaluation of the benefits. Building on the perception, performance and perceived quality and benefit literature a survey is carried out at different hiking sites in the southern part of Norway. The study results show that hiking tours in Norway perform rather well on factors such as physical benefits, mental benefits, facilitation of trail and slightly lower on information. Physical benefits are of higher importance than information and are also perceived to provide benefits in line with the importance given. Facilitation of trail is perceived to be of relatively high importance and the actual experience is rated higher than importance. Mental benefits is rated to be of most importance among the attributes. The tourists evaluate mental benefits to be somewhat lower than importance given. Subsequently, practice should focus on how to ensure mental benefits among hikers and research should seek to understand what this actually means in terms of new logics in tourism, that is experience value and the tourist own role in creating such value.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative importance of dimensions of experience value in four different hedonic- and utilitarian-dominated services.

The proposed hypotheses are tested by an experimental design. Altogether, four different service experiences, taking place during a tourist weekend trip, were studied using a scenario-based approach. In total, 938 members of a nationally representative online panel in Sweden participated in the research.

Both hedonic and utilitarian value dimensions are present for the different experiences. However, the structures of the value dimensions differ between hedonic- and utilitarian-dominant services. Surprisingly, functional value and value for money influence satisfaction most for both categories of services.

The design of the experiment allowed the authors to test different experiences within the same travel setting. The paper shows that all services include both hedonic and utilitarian elements, indicating awareness of what attracts tourists during the whole process of experiencing a journey. Findings suggest that further studies on different hedonic- and utilitarian-dominant firms within the different tourism service categories should be performed.

Theoretically, the paper only partly confirms the two structures of consumer service value, hedonic and utilitarian, revealed in earlier studies. The paper also reveals that functional value affects satisfaction more strongly in both hedonic- and utilitarian-dominant services. Several explanations for this are suggested. For the tourism industry to enhance experience value and tourist satisfaction, they should, therefore, focus on delivering functional value during the stay and probably more on emotional value in attracting visitors to travel. Results of the paper reveal that services are a part of a continuum between what is mostly utilitarian at the one end and mostly hedonic at the other end.

In response to issues and challenges facing the operators of nature-based tours, this study examines snowmobile tours in Svalbard, Norway. Specially, it posits to explore experience providers awareness of the fragile nature in which they are operating and how this awareness is implemented in their offerings. Subsequently, the chapter evaluates experience providers’ attitude of what aspects of the offerings they perceive as attractive to the tourists and the staging of the offerings accordingly. This study utilises interviews with six informants representing three different firms, a participant observation, and text analyses of the offer on the website www.Svalbard.net as the study method. The results show that the informants are aware of the fragile nature and strive to promote a sustainable behaviour during tours. In particular, they focus on informing and teaching the tourists about environmental aspects of the tour through storytelling and staging during the tour. By empowering the tourists through education and involvement they aim to make the tourists change their focus from riding the snowmobile to learning about the fragility of the nature and wildlife. Further, the informants state that the tourists may even become spokesmen for sustainable tourism due to the touring experience received. In conclusion, in a highly fragile environment like the Arctic a rise of motorised tours invites discourses on tourism development. It is pivotal to preserve the nature in a sustainable way while offering attractive tour experiences.

The present work assesses destination and service quality attributes, in terms of exploring the stronger and weaker points within these entities. In addition, it explores the relative effect of holistic experiences of destinations and the service-specific attributes on tourists’ overall satisfaction with destinations. Building on the perception, performance, and service quality literature a survey is carried out at 5 different tourist attractions among 701 tourists from over 15 countries worldwide visiting Northern Norway. The results divulge that many destination attributes are important; however, tourists find that the destination performs correspondingly with the perceived importance of destinations. The service quality attributes are also important, but reveal a perceptual gap between importance and performance. The study finds that Northern Norway as a tourist destination should concentrate on “uniqueness” and “novelty” to enhance tourist satisfaction. Service providers are advised to keep up the good work on “giving a good impression and a nice welcome” to enhance tourist satisfaction.

This paper explores why and how Japanese tourists travel in their home country. This work uses in-depth interviews and focus group interviews as its study design. Nature is an important aspect of Japanese life, and the meaning and use of nature include spiritual and bodily purification. Furthermore, Japanese domestic nature-based travels are strongly linked to self-identity and self-presentation, in that the Japanese travel not only for the sake of enjoyment, but also to a large extent as an instrument for learning, sharing and communing. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical contributions and practical applications.

The role of firm attributes as a source of competitive advantage has been discussed previously in the tourism marketing strategy field. Benchmarking, a recognized learning model, is recommended as a tool to identify and improve the competitiveness of a firm. The present study employs the importance–performance analysis (IPA) to benchmark five nature- and culture-based attractions in Northern Norway. Altogether, 701 respondents participated in the on-site survey, i.e., during their vacation experiences. The present study reveals several interesting and useful managerial insights and implications for the tourist attraction industry in general as well as for the individual tourist attraction firm measured. Consequently, this study contributes to management by integrating theory and empirical data to investigate whether benchmarking, as a company learning tool, may lead to improved performance. Based on the study results, the present work suggests strategies and potential improvements for the respective tourist attractions.

This research examines the effect of people interaction on value creation of tourist experiences by reconstructing a scale of value perception. It gathers a set of on-site survey data collected from tourists visiting Norwegian Arctic destinations that contain 579 useful questionnaires. A 19-item value measurement is first validated by confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) that results in a 13-item, five-factor parsimonious model. The CFA results also suggest a high-order factor solution; it finds two convergent factors explicated by five value domains. The derived high-order factors are labeled as tangible value and intangible value. Further analyses show significant relationships between experience values and people interaction. That is the intangible domain of value could create significant mediating effect on people interaction. Specifically, novelty and social values tend to moderate tourist experience. The conclusion furnishes implications in theory advancement and service innovation along with suggestions for research study.

Recent theories on emotion suggest that a limited set of core feelings are the cornerstone of subjective experiences. The article proposes to bring this perspective more deeply into the study of tourist experiences and behavioral intentions. It argues that two distinct categories of positive feelings are of particular importance when analyzing the experiences of travelers. The first category reflects feelings such as happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction. The second category reflects feelings such as engagement, interest, and absorption. With questionnaire data from 505 visitors to two popular sites in Northern Norway, the current study investigated the degree to which visitors’ on-site feelings of happiness and engagement predict intentions to revisit to, or recommend to others, the destination. Results showed that engagement, but not happiness, predicted the visitors’ intention to revisit. Engagement further predicted intentions to recommend the site to others. Feelings of on-site happiness also predicted recommendation intentions. The implications of the theoretical perspective and empirical results presented in the article are discussed.

This chapter delineates the antecedents of tourists’ perceptions of the extent to which they perceive the prices they pay as being fair. The study also tests the relative importance of overall price fairness perception, which is measured as the relative gap between the expected price and the perceived price. A model and hypothesis was developed and tested, with reference to existing theories. Data was collected from nine nature- and activity-based firms in Northern Norway. A regression analysis was performed, in order to test the relative effects and strengths of the antecedents of tourist perception of price fairness. The results revealed that both information and monetary antecedents affect perceptions of price fairness. In particular, monetary-related antecedents such as household income, payment in advance, and value for money affected perception of whether prices were fair. Interestingly, information-related antecedents such as previous experience affected negative perceptions of price fairness. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the tourist industry.