Western Norway Research Institute and Sogn og Fjordane University College are the formal founders of the Centre, a main objective being to obtain new insight into how more active use of natural and cultural resources may form the basis for increased value added in the Norwegian tourism sector and – at the same time - how to make tourism more sustainable. Terms such as ecotourism , sustainable tourism and quality tourism will be pivotal in this work.
Objectives and fields of competence
The Centre aims to build national and international top-level competence within research and development on geotourism. The latter, the basis of which is natural and cultural resources, draws on the concept of sustainable development. The primary areas of research will include:
• Sustainable tourism
• Tourism and climate challenges
• Nature and cultural heritage as a basis for experience tourism
• Rural tourism
• Destination development and participatory tourism planning
• Tourism policy and commercial organisation
• Information technology and tourism
Tourism and environment is about an understanding of the environment as both a resource basis for tourism and the environmental impacts of tourism. Central to the first approach is research on the type of tourism that falls under the categories rural tourism, national park tourism and ecotourism. Local and organic food as important input factors is one of the areas in which we have been working in particular. A central concept in the other approaches is sustainable tourism. The areas we have worked most on here is energy consumption and environmental challenges in connection with the journey itself, but we have also worked on environmental management and other approaches to reducing the environmental problems connected to established activities (overnight stays, service, experiences).
With respect to tourism and IT, we work primarily on improving tourism websites and making them more visible. Marketing in the tourism sector is increasingly about marketing on the Internet. To be found on the Internet you have to be found by the search engines and get a high priority by them. This is a large-scale task, which starts with a good information structure and which also involves connecting web services in such a way as to provide a good presentation of an entire area. Indicators of good tourism-based web services is also an important area.
Contacts at Vestlandsforsking:
Research leader Carlo Aall
Research Coorinator Stefan Gössling
Related web-pages Sogn og Fjordane University College:
Reiseliv
Naturfag
Idrettsfag
Contacts at Sogn og Fjordane University College:
Associate Professor Leif Hauge (naturfag) leif.hauge@hisf.no
Oppdatert 01.02.2007
