Research on the history of Scandinavian summer and seaside tourism – transnational and transregional perspectives?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate important research on the history of Scandinavian tourism conducted between the 1980s and the present. More specifically, it deals with research on summer and seaside tourism history in the Skagerrak–Kattegat and some parts of the North Sea region (southeastern Norway, Bohuslän in southwestern Sweden, and Jutland in western Denmark) from the late 1800s through the twentieth century. Although the publications chosen for this historiographical analysis are primarily anthologies and articles in scholarly reports, some monographs have been included as well. The ensuing discussion includes reflections on how the selected geographical spaces may have limited the research, and how an emphasis on other – and often larger – geographical spaces, relations, and contact patterns, as well as methodological and theoretical reflections and other interpretative keys, might have been both stimulating and innovative. Finally, this article suggests some of the directions in which future Scandinavian summer and seaside tourism history research can move.