| Summary: | PhD thesis in Hotel and tourism management Natural-based attractions are central for Norwegian tourism. Northern lights, rugged arctic landscapes, fjords and mountains, rural areas with culture landscapes are all part of the Norwegian experience. However, Norwegian tourism businesses, particularly in rural areas, struggle to gain profitability. High-cost level and seasonality impose challenges to tourism firms. As the attractions are mainly nature-based and located along the coast, the country is also a thriving destination to cruise tourism. The growth in cruise tourism is mostly due to increased competitiveness of cruises relative to other modes of travel, food, and accommodation services. For the fjord and coastal destinations, cruises bring in large volumes of tourists to the benefit of many tourist suppliers, but they also compete with onshore services. Moreover, the tourism experience relies on construction of a seamless product – as opposed to many other industry sectors, competitiveness goes beyond intra-market concerns, as each firm in the tourism agglomeration rely on its collective competitiveness. Since production and consumption is geographically localized, the limited product range is a disadvantage to many rural destinations. Rural destinations may also be more prone to seasonal variations, since unlike urban destinations they do not benefit from wider market segments and activities in the off season. This thesis sheds light on these issues by recognizing the external effects that arise from geographically localized production. Market characteristics on the supply and demand sides spill over to other firms in the same area and to adjacent areas. The availability of register data on tourism firms, accompanied by refined regression techniques enables spatial analysis of tourism development. In the context of cruise tourism, a spatial econometric model is applied to investigate the effect of cruise tourism on onshore HORECA (hotels, restaurants, cafés, and similar) firms. The results indicate ...
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