IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/forpol/v13y2011i6p446-455.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The realisation of tourism business opportunities adjacent to three national parks in southern Finland: entrepreneurs and local decision-makers matter

Author

Listed:
  • Selby, Ashley
  • Petäjistö, Leena
  • Huhtala, Maija

Abstract

The tourists and recreationists who are attracted to national parks create a basis for the development of nature-based tourism. The paper examines the attitudes of entrepreneurs and local decision-makers towards the development of tourism- and recreational service enterprises adjacent to three small, different-aged national parks in southern Finland: Linnansaari, Seitseminen and Repovesi. Four distinct groups of entrepreneurs could be formed on the basis of their attitudes to business. The most "advanced" group (adapters) were aware of both the demand for tourism services and their enterprises' business resources. The second group (adopters) were resource aware but had ideas for new business ventures rather than knowledge of demand. An "informed satisficer" group exhibited satisficing attitudes (where lifestyle aspirations are placed before business growth and development) but who were well informed and could be related to the adopters. The final group of entrepreneurs were simply satisficers. There was a greater proportion of adapter entrepreneurs adjacent to the oldest park, while entrepreneurs adjacent to the youngest park were predominantly satisficers or informed satisficers. The adopter class of entrepreneurs was most common in the two older national park areas. The majority of local decision-makers in the municipalities adjacent to the national parks preferred to develop tourism together with other sectors of the economy, although industrial alternatives were preferred. The decision-makers fell into three groups with respect to their preferred ways and means of developing tourism-based local enterprise: supporting existing enterprises, lowering the threshold for (new) enterprise, and developing the business infrastructure and funding arrangements. The greatest support for new enterprises was found in the Repovesi area, the district with the greatest proportion of satisficing entrepreneurs. Decision-makers preferred to support existing businesses adjacent to the oldest park, Linnansaari, with its greater proportion of adapter and adopter entrepreneurs and fewer satisficers. Opportunities for business will not be realised if local enterprises fail to perceive or respond to them, or if decision-makers fail to play an active role in encouraging tourism enterprises by means of support schemes or by developing the tourism infrastructure. Regional differences in the development of tourism-related services therefore depend on the attitudes of the key actors and their ability to encompass new economic activities and their associated institutions and discourses.

Suggested Citation

  • Selby, Ashley & Petäjistö, Leena & Huhtala, Maija, 2011. "The realisation of tourism business opportunities adjacent to three national parks in southern Finland: entrepreneurs and local decision-makers matter," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 446-455, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:13:y:2011:i:6:p:446-455
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934111000438
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Armen A. Alchian, 1950. "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3), pages 211-211.
    2. Bill McEvily & Akbar Zaheer, 1999. "Bridging ties: a source of firm heterogeneity in competitive capabilities," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(12), pages 1133-1156, December.
    3. Ahola Virpi & Aittokallio Tero & Uusipaikka Esa & Vihinen Mauno, 2004. "Statistical Methods for Identifying Conserved Residues in Multiple Sequence Alignment," Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-30, October.
    4. Philip Valta, 2008. "Strategic Behavior, Financing, and Stock Returns," Working Papers hal-00515923, HAL.
    5. K R Cox & A Mair, 1991. "From Localised Social Structures to Localities as Agents," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 23(2), pages 197-213, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Henri Järv & Raymond D. Ward & Janar Raet & Kalev Sepp, 2021. "Socio-Economic Effects of National Park Governance and Management: Lessons from Post-Socialist Era Estonia," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-34, November.
    2. Heagney, E.C. & Rose, J.M. & Ardeshiri, A. & Kovač, M., 2018. "Optimising recreation services from protected areas – Understanding the role of natural values, built infrastructure and contextual factors," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(PC), pages 358-370.
    3. Tufail Alyousef & Faez Alshihri & Mahmoud Abdellatif & Tareq Alrawaf & Reham Abdellatif, 2022. "Integrated Recreation Cities and Sustainable Development in Saudi Arabia: Contributions, Constraints, and Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-22, May.
    4. Arsić, Sanela & Nikolić, Djordje & Živković, Živan, 2017. "Hybrid SWOT - ANP - FANP model for prioritization strategies of sustainable development of ecotourism in National Park Djerdap, Serbia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 11-26.
    5. D. Březina & P. Hlaváčková, 2016. "The assessment of economic indicators of National Park Administrations," Journal of Forest Science, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 62(2), pages 88-96.
    6. Maier, Carolin & Hebermehl, Wiebke & Grossmann, Carol M. & Loft, Lasse & Mann, Carsten & Hernández-Morcillo, Mónica, 2021. "Innovations for securing forest ecosystem service provision in Europe – A systematic literature review," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Erik Stam & Roy Thurik & Peter van der Zwan, 2010. "Entrepreneurial exit in real and imagined markets," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(4), pages 1109-1139, August.
    2. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    3. Pelikan, Pavel, 1999. "Institutions for the Selection of Entrepreneurs: Implications for Economic Growth and Financial Crises," Working Paper Series 510, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 15 Feb 2000.
    4. Clegg, Jeremy & Lin, Hsin Mei & Voss, Hinrich & Yen, I-Fan & Shih, Yi Tien, 2016. "The OFDI patterns and firm performance of Chinese firms: The moderating effects of multinationality strategy and external factors," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 971-985.
    5. Pursey Heugens & Stelios Zyglidopoulos, 2008. "From social ties to embedded competencies: the case of business groups," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 12(4), pages 325-341, November.
    6. Mark J. O. Bagley, 2019. "Networks, geography and the survival of the firm," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 1173-1209, September.
    7. Robert Tartarin, 1987. "Efficacité et propriété," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 38(6), pages 1129-1156.
    8. Müge Özman, 2007. "Network Formation and Strategic Firm Behaviour to Explore and Exploit," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 11(1), pages 1-7.
    9. Spagano, Salvatore, 2021. "Generalized Darwinism: An Auxiliary Hypothesis," MPRA Paper 108829, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Lawrence A. Boland, 2016. "Econometrics and equilibrium models," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 438-447, July.
    11. Lavlu Mozumdar & Geoffrey Hagelaar & Valentina C. Materia & S. W. F. Omta & Mohammad Amirul Islam & Gerben Velde, 2019. "Embeddedness or Over-Embeddedness? Women Entrepreneurs’ Networks and Their Influence on Business Performance," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(5), pages 1449-1469, December.
    12. John Finch, 2000. "Is post-Marshallian economics an evolutionary research tradition?," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 377-406.
    13. Tom Broekel & Wladimir Mueller, 2018. "Critical links in knowledge networks – What about proximities and gatekeeper organisations?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(10), pages 919-939, November.
    14. Peter J. Boettke & Alexander W. Salter & Daniel J. Smith, 2018. "Money as meta-rule: Buchanan’s constitutional economics as a foundation for monetary stability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 529-555, September.
    15. François MORIN (LEREPS-GRES), 2006. "The Capitalism of financial market and the control of cognitive (In French)," Cahiers du GRES (2002-2009) 2006-05, Groupement de Recherches Economiques et Sociales.
    16. Pascal Seppecher & Isabelle Salle & Dany Lang, 2019. "Is the market really a good teacher?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 299-335, March.
    17. Amir, Rabah & Evstigneev, Igor V. & Hens, Thorsten & Schenk-Hoppe, Klaus Reiner, 2005. "Market selection and survival of investment strategies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 105-122, February.
    18. Sakai, Koji & Uesugi, Iichiro & Watanabe, Tsutomu, 2010. "Firm age and the evolution of borrowing costs: Evidence from Japanese small firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1970-1981, August.
    19. Daniele Giachini, 2018. "Rationality and Asset Prices under Belief Heterogeneity," LEM Papers Series 2018/07, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    20. Beker, Pablo & Chattopadhyay, Subir, 2010. "Consumption dynamics in general equilibrium: A characterisation when markets are incomplete," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2133-2185, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:13:y:2011:i:6:p:446-455. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.