Rural residents’ opinions about second home owners’ pursuit of own interests in the host community

Abstract

Many second home owners demand rights, benefits, and influence in their host community, and the article examines how second home owners in pursuit of their interests can gain acceptance among local residents. The analysis is based on interviews with local residents in four rural Norwegian second home municipalities. The findings show that local residents’ attitudes towards second home owners’ pursuit of their own interests in the host community depend to a large degree upon the residents’ perceptions of the outcome of second home tourism in their municipality. Local residents can tolerate second home owners’ demands as long as the second home owners satisfy some of the community's significant economic-material or social needs. When second home owners make demands while their presence does not bring any evident benefits to the host community they are perceived as trying to take without giving. Based on these findings, the author argues that it is not second home owners’ (objective) otherness from locals that is the main problem in cases of a conflictual climate between the two parties. Rather, it is the local structural context that constitutes the main problem if it does not make it possible for second home owners to contribute to the host community.