Strategies in Norwegian Farm Tourism: Product Development, Challenges, and Solutions

Abstract Over the past two decades, rural tourism has increasingly been seen as a competitive advantage for the Norwegian tourism industry. The rural tourism sector was, by the turn of the millennium, characterised by tougher market environments, a demand for more coordinated and improved quality products, strong competition, ageing infrastructures, and unfulfilled expectations. The research reported here investigates Norwegian farm tourism operators and discusses their strategies in product development, the challenges, and the solutions. Based on a number of in-depth interviews with tourist enterprises in two Norwegian rural areas, the authors argue that Norwegian farm tourism is, in many ways, in line with the foreseen development. The strategies of the Norwegian farm tourism operators are: varied products, cooperation, and personal presence. Their motives are both market oriented and based on farm resources and household concerns, but when the chosen strategies lead to conflicts between two concerns, the household concern dominates.