Current Issues in Tourism
Editor: C. Michael Hall (Department of Management, College of Business and Economics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand) and Chris Cooper (Foundation Professor of Tourism, University of Queensland, Australia) Michael and Chris are joint editor of the book series Aspects of Tourism. Reviews Editor John Jenkins (University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia)
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Volume: 5 Number: 5 Page: 426–446
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Reinventing the Countryside: German Second-home Owners in Southern Sweden
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Dieter K. Müller
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During the 1990s, second-home tourism experienced renewed interest in the industrialised world. German tourists, who discovered the nearby Swedish countryside, contributed to the new second-home tourism
patterns. During a five-year period from 1991 to 1996 the number of German second-home owners in Sweden increased from 1500 to more than 5500. This paper focuses on German second-home owners and their lives
in the Swedish countryside. The main objective of the paper is to analyze the German second-home owners' experiences of encounters with the Swedish countryside and its inhabitants. The analysis is based
on an interview survey with 91 German second-home owners in Småland, an important region for German second-home ownership in Sweden. It is argued that the German second-home owners employ a conservative
and local strategy regarding their lives in the countryside. However, contrary to their expectations, they meet a post-productive countryside and thus fail to integrate. Instead, they create a parallel
society and become engaged in preserving the countryside.
© Multilingual Matters 2002
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