20 Years of Nordic tourism economics research: a review and future research agenda

Abstract

The number of economics-related articles in the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism (SJHT) has recently increased considerably. Despite this increase, the research efforts of Nordic economists on tourism issues have lagged behind in an international comparison. The recent increase in the number of economics-related publications in SJHT is due to better access to microdata (individual and firm data), the rapid development of statistical and econometric methods and the interest in the causes and effects of the tourism boom in the Nordic countries until recently. This article gives a brief review of the main topics of Nordic economic research that have been studied, as well as potential future research ideas (e.g. short term rentals, rising industry concentration, innovation and ICT) and data sources (big data, social media data, linked data at the micro level and register data) that can be developed and used for future studies. With the COVID-19 pandemic, general uncertainty and government intervention in the tourism sector will lead to a change in travel flows, calling for more quantitative studies. More research based on internationally comparable microdata for several Nordic countries will be particularly helpful.