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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.

Many destinations are keen to be a part of the increasing and lucrative luxury tourism market. Before targeting luxury tourists in the marketing efforts, is it essential to understand the meaning of ‘luxury’ and what is considered exclusive? As an emerging luxury destination, Norway certainly offers many attributes that can satisfy the needs of luxury tourists. Marketing luxury provides, nevertheless, challenges for Norway as its main attraction is nature, which is fundamentally free and accessible to anyone. Thus, it is necessary to tailor-make unique nature experiences with luxurious products, resulting in exclusivity and once-in-a-lifetime experiences beyond the masses. Luxury tourists have also been advocated as more sustainable than mass tourists as addition to the issue of carrying capacity; many are also concerned with responsible tourism. Specialist travel agents play an important role in the marketing process as they have first-hand knowledge of luxury tourists as well as acting as guardians of information communicated in marketing. In addition to mainland Norway, the Svalbard islands in the Arctic region may be considered as truly unique and exclusive destinations. While sustainable development is a major concern in Norwegian tourism in general, it is even more vital in the Arctic regions. Therefore, marketing needs to provide a balanced picture of the attractions and attributes in order to become a luxury destination that is sustainable in the long run.

The authors analyze how conflicting institutional demands become deployed in organizational storytelling in the context of wildlife documentaries. Documentary producers increasingly feel the pressure to entertain the audience, while simultaneously addressing serious environmental issues. Using a mixed-method analysis of BBC wildlife documentaries produced between 2009 and 2017, the authors identify two narrative strategies, alternation and amplification, to balance demands for entertainment and environmental conservation. Alternation switches entertaining and serious content to offset conservation concerns, while amplification uses entertainment to accentuate conservation. Emotions play a significant role in both ways of storytelling. The findings of this chapter contribute to the literatures on institutional microfoundations, storytelling, and emotions.

The encyclical letter of Pope Francis, “Praised Be: On the Care of Our Common Home” (Laudato si’), presented an excellent opportunity to spark a conversation between economics and faith-based discourses on sustainability. The encyclical underlined the human origins of the ecological crisis and proposed fundamental changes in organizing our economic life. Among the important suggestions put forward by the Pope are increased frugality in consumption and acknowledging the intrinsic value of nature.

Frugality implies rebalancing the spiritual and material values in economic life. This may lead to the rehabilitation of the substantive meaning of the “economic” and the revival of the corresponding logic of sufficiency. Despite their different ontological and anthropological conceptions, the ecological position of the Pope’s encyclical has close links with Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics. Both Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics point out that emphasizing individuality and promoting the greatest fulfillment of the desires of the individual together lead to destruction. Happiness is linked to wholeness, not to personal wealth.

Mainstream economics fails to acknowledge the intrinsic value of nature. It is happy to put value on environmental goods and services merely on the basis of a market value determined by competing economic actors. But price, for sure, is an inappropriate model for assessing the value of natural entities. There is no algorithmic solution to nature’s allocation problems. Decisions and policies related to nature require making qualitative and multiperspective considerations and the proper use of our wisdom, knowledge, and experience.

Travel and tourism have had a long history in the Nordic countries, but research on tourism has a relatively short tradition in the region. Recently, academic interest in the Nordic tourism space has grown and diversified especially as a result of increasing numbers of academics and institutions involved with tourism geographies and studies and education in the region. The Nordic context has provided thematic focus areas for empirical studies that characterize tourism geographies in the region, with topics including nature-based tourism, utilization of wilderness areas, second-home and rural developments, impacts in peripheries, and tourism as a tool for regional development. In addition, there are emerging research themes outside of the traditional core topics, such as urban, events, and heritage tourism.