Development of Second-Home Tourism in Denmark

Abstract

Second-home tourism is the predominant branch of the tourism industry in Denmark today. Second homes are privately owned cottages and houses that are used for recreational purposes. This paper presents an overview of the tradition of second-home use, its origins in Denmark in the nineteenth century and its subsequent development up to the present day. Different stages in Danish second-home development are presented, which have culminated in second-home tourism's dominance of the Danish tourism industry today. Second-home tourism developed in the late nineteenth century when artists and citizens of Copenhagen discovered the recreational value of the countryside, mainly in the small villages at the coast. Small cabins for weekend use supplemented the early homes of the richer people in the early 1920s and 1930s. From 1950 to 1970, second-home development increased enormously. The character of non-commercial tourism changed in the 1960s and 1970s when Danish second homes became vacation homes for domestic and foreign tourists. Since the 1970s, second-home development has been restricted to certain recreational areas at the coast. In the 1980s, primarily German vacationers began to make commercial use of second homes. In the mid-1990s, the peak of commercial second-home overnight stays was reached with about 17 million overnight stays per year. Since then, commercial second-home tourism has slowly decreased. Today, more than 218,000 second homes exist.