| dc.description.abstract | This study examines the phenomenon of seasonality in tourism at Sunnmøre in detail. Previous research regarding seasonality found that this is a major problem which needs to be overcome, thereby increasing the relevance of the phenomenon. However, in the case of Sunnmøre, no previous academic research has been done on seasonality in the local tourism industry. This is the starting point for the study. The research question is thus to explore how it is possible to expand the tourist season of the international market at Sunnmøre.
A qualitative case study was used to describe the phenomenon seasonality. This study involved one case of a tourism company at Sunnmøre. Moreover, the case study contained indepth interviews with a selected number of employees, in addition to other experts in the tourism industry.
The interviews revealed important causes of seasonality and general approaches to reduce them. The identified causes of seasonality at Sunnmøre were the weather, timing decisions and calendar effects. There were also identified many approaches to reduce seasonality, such as events & festivals, market diversification, product diversification, structural & environmental response, pricing differentiation, open shops/restaurants/attractions, transportation & logistics, marketing and more available resources. Furthermore, it was revealed that in order to manage high-end international tourists to come to Sunnmøre the whole year, two things needed to be done; first, develop an exciting product, and second, do some hard work then it comes to marketing, and especially digital marketing. These aspects were explored in connection with the case company, which found that the activities offered in the low season were good, but could be adjusted according to the seasons, and that their digital marketing needed some work, especially the website of the case company.
The main contributions of this research were increased knowledge regarding seasonality in tourism at Sunnmøre and the findings of new approaches to reduce seasonality, which can be of valuable insight to the tourism industry at Sunnmøre.
Keywords: Seasonality, Tourism, Sunnmøre, High-end, Digital Marketing | nb_NO |
