This article examines how the mobilities paradigm intersects with physically moving as an ongoing lifestyle choice. We conceptualise a lens of ‘lifestyle mobilities’ that challenges discrete notions of and allows for a wider grasp of the increasing fluidity between travel, leisure and migration. We demonstrate how contemporary lifestyle-led mobility patterns contribute to and illustrate a breakdown in conventional binary divides between work and leisure, and a destabilisation of concepts of ‘home’ and ‘away’. We unpack issues of identity construction, belonging and place attachment associated with sustained corporeal mobility, and conclude by suggesting avenues for the further study of lifestyle mobilities.
Being corporeally mobile as a lifestyle is now influenced by and through transnational ties, technologies of transport, knowledge and information, and changing socio-cultural outlooks that often characterise the (re)formation of the everyday. As such, moving as and for lifestyle has become increasingly complex. We offer the term 'lifestyle mobilities' as a conceptual lens to challenge current thinking on the intersections between tourism and migration. Contemporary research on lifestyle migration largely addresses permanent and seasonal lifestyle relocation, which fails to grasp temporal complexities and ambiguities that are found in various experiences of lifestyle mobilities. Using the mobilities paradigm, we conceptually explore some of the ways in which lifestyle mobilities are subsuming binaries of work/leisure, home/away and here/there. We discuss how experiences of corporeal movement as lifestyle produce, and are produced by, multiple identities and cultural hybridities that are affecting how some individuals may (dis)connect with place.
It has been suggested that mobilities is a key concept of contemporary society and the predominant way in which one engages with the world. At the same time, there has been a (re)focus on ideas of lifestyle within the social sciences. Consequently, there is a need to challenge current thinking about the corporeal organisation of movement to take into account the ambiguities and tensions that abound in the literature on both lifestyle and mobilities. This session seeks papers that highlight socio-cultural phenomena pertaining to lifestyle and mobility and invites papers that challenge existing thinking in these areas, including: - Negotiations of lifestyle and movement - Mobile methodologies - Affective possibilities and lifestyle - Mobility, lifestyle and tourism, recreation and/or leisure - Hybrid possibilities – migration/transnationalism/mobility - Cosmopolitanism, fluid identities and identity confusions - Moorings, movement and performance - Mobilities as the corporeal everyday - Lifestyle mobility and relationships to place
Regionförstoring är ett begrepp som under senare tid blivit allt mer populärt inom såväl forskning som politik och planering. Regionförstoring genom ökad rörlighet på arbetsmarknaden har identifierats som ett medel för att åstadkomma regional tillväxt inom den regionala utvecklingspolitiken. Då förutsättningarna för regionförstoring avgörs i individers möjlighet att pendla undersöker vi i denna rapport förutsättningar för pendling bland anställda vid två företag i en arbetsmarknadsregion som betecknas som en sårbar industriregion. Denna typ av region kan ha särskilt mycket att vinna på en ökad pendling då utbudet på arbetsmarknaden är begränsat. Samtidigt är det viktigt att förstå de individuella förutsättningarna i varje lokal kontext för att få kunskap om de faktiska möjligheterna till pendling och arbetsresor. Rapporten syftar till att undersöka hur förutsättningarna för pendling skiljer sig åt för individer i en sårbar region. De aspekter som vi särskilt fokuserar på är betydelsen av utbildningsnivå och kön för benägenheten att pendla. Det empiriska materialet som ligger till grund för resultaten är dels en enkätundersökning och dels intervjuer, både enskilda och i fokusgrupper, med anställda på företagen Spendrups bryggeri AB och ABB Power Systems.
How career paths are interpreted and conceptualised by hospitality workers and industry representatives remains underexplored in current literature. In this paper, we highlight and discuss sector-specific and contextual factors that influence the possibility of establishing a career within the Swedish hospitality sector. The paper uses interviews with hotel managers, who describe and discuss motivations and choices made throughout their own careers and interviews with young (former) seasonal hospitality workers who describe and reflect on their future plans and work-life experience. Additional data are derived through observations at national seminars and meetings for representatives from the Swedish tourism and hospitality industry, where issues of competence and careers were discussed. The findings indicate that the shaping of career paths within the hospitality sector is influenced by two normative and discursively produced ‘truths’ about career paths in the hospitality sector: the importance of internal knowledge transfer and the importance of high mobility. These narratives impose expectations on individuals to be mobile, to change jobs frequently and to work their way from the bottom-up within the industry, and are based on a presumption of a diversified and dense local hospitality labour market. However, since the conditions are different due to contextual, geographical features of labour market size and structure, attractiveness of places, etc., these expectations are difficult to fulfil in places other than in larger urban areas. These normative assumptions of what a successful hospitality career is also have consequences for the development of the hospitality sector as external influences of competence from other sectors and higher education are not seen as valuable, which makes the sector self-contained and not open to external, potentially innovative knowledge.
Hållbar destinationsutveckling kräver samarbete mellan offentliga och privata aktörer. Den övergripande forskningsfrågan som genomsyrat arbetet med denna rapport handlar om hur samhällets resurser bäst kan användas för att utveckla turistdestinationer. Projekten Nordic Snowmobile Center och Projekt Entreprenörsutbildning Småland/Kronoberg, vilka har finansierats med olika mycket offentliga medel, utvärderas i denna rapport. Resultaten från utvärderingen utgör sedan grund för diskussion och analys av destinationsutveckling. Rapporten redogör också för följeforskning genomförd på Projekt Nordic Snowmobile Center (NSC) mellan åren 2004-2007. Vi konstaterar att båda projekten uppfyller sina huvudsyften. Projekt NSC kan däremot inte anses ha uppfyllt alla sina delmål. Förklaringarna till detta står att finna i faktorer som förankringen av projektets mål och delmål i projektområdet; en asymmetri i budgeterade investeringskostnader mellan projektets delområden; institutionella faktorer såsom projektadministration samt redovisningsprinciper hos EU-sekretariat och de andra offentliga finansiärerna. Följeforskningen av Projekt NSC identifierade dessutom ett antal faktorer som kan bidra till ökad förståelse för hur ett projekt av denna storlek bör organiseras och ledas samt vilka stöd som ett projekt av den här typen kräver för att åstadkomma destinationsutveckling.
This paper investigates chain hotel employees in Sweden and their ability to work against sex trafficking. Using ten semi-structured interviews, the research asks questions about employee's relationships with external stakeholders (the police, booking channels, non-profit organizations, and competitors) and macroenvironmental factors (political and legal factors, economic, socio-cultural and health). The findings highlight that lack of communication, cooperation and autonomy hinder chain hotel employee's ability to recognize and prevent sex trafficking. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for better interdisciplinary engagement to help eliminate sex trafficking within the tourism and hospitality industries and reiterates the call for actionable outcomes that empower chain hotel employees to work with external stakeholders to find viable solutions to help stop sex trafficking.
Hotels are often regarded as (un)wittingly complicit in terms of sex traffickers using their facilities for illegal sex purchases. This article examines chain employees' experiences of individual social responsibility (ISR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the interaction between hotels and three stakeholder groups (online booking channels; governmental and non -governmental organizations; and nearby hotels) in the fight against sex trafficking and illegal sex purchases. Employee perspectives were gathered through semi -structured interviews in Sweden and the Netherlands, two countries with distinctive prostitution legislation. The findings highlight that the hotel employees found tensions between ISR and CSR and the relationship with the external stakeholders challenging. What became apparent was that CSR is often a facade used to report back positive results to external stakeholders rather than CSR and ISR playing a proactive role in fighting sex trafficking and illegal sexual purchases. We conclude by arguing for the necessity to better understand the relationships between ISR and CSR within the hospitality industry and suggesting that there remains a need for better understandings of how CSR can work across industry stakeholders and within academic research in order to ensure actionable outcomes that make a difference.
Mountainous areas with a high dependency on its tourism industry are often relatively small and remote. But some of these areas have faced a population increase due to large in-migration;Wanaka in New Zealand’s Southern Alps is one example. This paper is studying the migration motivations of a few individuals that have moved to Wanaka and how they started to feel like part of their new community. The meaning of the place is important for these newcomers. The results of the study indicate that there is a strong link between the community and the lifestyle that in-migrants are seeking. It also highlights the importance for in-migrants to be a part of the social community. Social Clubs, sport clubs and voluntary work are ways of becoming a part of a social network.
Seasonal tourism workers in the Swedish mountains can be conceptualised as members of occupational communities. For members of such a community, the dual relationship between the job and other members are important. However, a place perspective might be fruitful, as place amenities are expected drivers of job acceptance. By studying seasonal workers' relation to place, through the lens of their ‘membership’ of an occupational community, it is possible to capture both the individual sense of place and the group's shared sense of place. The former is highly important, as social relations among the workers are particularly significant. In this study, the conceptual framework of occupational communities is modified to better suit temporary and mobile workers in amenity-rich rural areas. The overall aim of this paper is to investigate how seasonal tourism employees can be analysed as an occupational community. Further, it studies the ways in which a particular tourism-related occupational community perceives and connects to its location, as well as the ways in which seasonal tourism workers perceive the role of place and community in their everyday lives and future plans. Hence, this article concludes that members of an occupational community have a dual attachment to place. This type of community could exist and move around without being affected by the geographical place, but the place has affective possibilities influencing the workers, and in an isolated rural place, the community has more space to grow stronger. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This paper analyses the importance of tourism employment for in-migration to Malung/Salen and alvdalen, two rural municipalities hosting two major tourist destinations in the southern Swedish mountains. It uses micro-data from a database that includes, among many other variables, residence and employment information. This work is explorative and uses longitudinal data that permit examining individuals and go beyond simple net employment figures to show that many in-migrants to these municipalities are employed in tourism and constitute part of what is defined as the "creative workforce" in the local labour market. In this sense, tourism employment is found to be a pull factor for in-migration of highly skilled and well-paid people.