negotiating landscape in rural tourism

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 402–426, 20080160-7383/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Printed in Great Britain

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2007.10.001www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures

NEGOTIATING LANDSCAPEIN RURAL TOURISM

Karoline DaugstadCentre for Rural Research, Norway

Abstract: Landscape is a vitally important asset for Norwegian rural tourism. Different viewsand perceptions of landscape are negotiated among key actors such as operators, tourists, andfarmers. This article investigates these negotiations in relation to three dimension of land-scape: values and requirements; how it is experienced; and future development prospects.The study shows that while actors hold different positions and attitudes, all of them unitein their concerns about landscape change, and in their desire to preserve food traditionsand local produce. Further, this paper argues that there is a general re-orientation in land-scape perception from ‘‘spectacularization’’ towards ‘‘multi-sensing’’. Keywords: landscape,agriculture, landscape perception, Norway. � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Resume: Negociation du paysage dans le tourisme rural. Le paysage est un atout d’uneimportance capitale pour le tourisme rural norvegien. De differentes opinions et perceptionsdu paysage sont negociees parmi les acteurs cles tels qu’operateurs, touristes et agriculteurs.Cet article examine ces negociations par rapport a trois dimensions du paysage: valeurs et exi-gences, comment on vit l’experience et perspectives de nouveaux developpements. L’etudemontre que les acteurs, tout en ayant des opinions et des attitudes differentes, presententun front uni face aux changements du paysage et pour conserver les traditions alimentaireset des produits agricoles locaux. En plus, l’article soutient qu’il y a une reorientation generaledans la perceptions du paysage qui change de la ‘spectacularision’ a la ‘perception multisen-sorielle’. Mots-cles: paysage, agriculture, perception de paysage, Norvege. � 2007 ElsevierLtd. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

Rural restructuring is a common feature of the Western world. In thepostproductivist transition, rural resources that were traditionally thebasis for the primary businesses are now increasingly subject to other de-mands. Groote, Huigen and Haartsen (2000) describe a shift in the 90sfrom a primary focus on the economic function of rural areas in north-west Europe towards a focus on diversity and consumption. This is seento be a consequence of or a response to the intertwined processes ofglobalization and its flip-side, localization, which involves an increasedawareness of the specific qualities of the local community (Cloke andGoodwin 1993; Hoggart, Buller and Black 1995). In this scheme of

Karoline Daugstad is Head of Research at the Center for Rural Research (University Center,Norway. Email <[email protected]>). A human geographer with particular interestin landscape studies, her research explores landscape as symbol, representation, andideology, and landscape policies and management balancing commercial use and protection.A recent focus of interest is landscape and cultural heritage as an asset in tourism and debateson authenticity.

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things, some rural areas or landscapes become focal points for the pro-duction and consumption of the ‘‘natural’’ rural idyll. The rural be-comes a refuge from urban life (Cloke 2003; Groote et al 2000;Stenbacka 2001), a place to engage in recreation and ‘‘heal’’, a viewrooted in the notion of escape from urban misery to the rural idyll asexpressed in the romantic period (Daugstad 1999). In the intersectionbetween globalization and localization, rural tourism has become a ma-jor source of income for rural actors (Ilbery, Bowler, Clark, Crockett andShaw 1998). Indeed, tourism has taken over from agriculture as theprincipal business in many rural communities in Europe (Butler, Halland Jenkins 1998; Garrod, Wornell and Younell 2005; Kneafsey 2000).

In Norway, rural tourism has not yet become a major source of localeconomic growth. However, in recent years, representatives of the Nor-wegian tourism industry and agricultural policymakers have come torecognize this as a common interest. They perceive that the two havea shared destiny and face similar challenges, such as the need for addi-tional income and a new market orientation, with a potential for mu-tual benefit (Gahr Støre, Singsaas, Brunstad, Ibenholt and Røtnes2003; Kongshaug 2004; Landbruks- og matdepartementet 2004a).The reasoning behind the ‘‘shared destiny’’ hypothesis put forwardby tourism is associated with a need to develop new markets, and a con-cern for the quality of what it views as a major asset: the cultural land-scape, the decentralized settlement pattern, and living communities ofrural Norway. The agricultural sector is interested in this ‘‘shared des-tiny’’ because agriculture is under heavy pressure, with farms going outof business at the rate of around 3,000 per year. As a consequence, thelandscape is rapidly changing. The Norwegian agricultural authoritiessee rural tourism as a necessary strategy of diversification, which couldmake a vital contribution in upholding the sector and subsequently inthe maintenance of the landscape through agricultural practices(Daugstad, Rønningen and Skar 2006).

As to the size and structure of rural tourism in Norway, a detailed sta-tistical account is lacking. However, Holmengen and Akselsen (2005)offer some indications. There are about 7,500 rural tourism businessesin Norway, of which 325 (4.3%) are recorded as related to agriculture(for instance, they include farmers who run a small cafe or a campsite,or who rent out cabins). In comparison, rural businesses recorded asfishing tourism make up 0.2% of the total, adventure tourism 1%,camping and cabins 6.3%, hotels 15.4%, taxis 19.3%, and cafes, restau-rants and bars 21.7%. Rural tourism is small-scale: for ‘‘tourism relatedto agriculture,’’ 97% of the enterprises are micro-businesses (definedas less than 6 employees) while 3% are small enterprises with 6-20employees. The high number of micro-enterprises indicates that theactivities are often attached to farming, and that they provide addi-tional income for farmers (Rønning 2004).

What are the major assets for rural tourism in Norway? Partly becauseit is a country which came late to urbanization, and it is a nation wherethe primary industries traditionally have been strong, typical attrac-tions such as historic cities or built monuments are scarce (Gahr Støreet al 2003). The landscape and natural environment with its steep

404 K. Daugstad / Annals of Tourism Research 35 (2008) 402–426

mountains, narrow fjords, and the midnight sun are viewed as the coreassets. Even though these attractions may be perceived as more or less‘‘pure nature’’ by tourists, the heterogeneity of the landscape with itsimprints of agricultural activity is seen as a major asset. The remainingdecentralized settlement pattern characterized by small rural commu-nities also provides the infrastructure and services on which tourism re-lies. A number of studies indicate that if small-scale agricultural activityceases and rural areas are depopulated, the heterogeneous landscape,characterized by patches of open land around farms, will becomehomogenous as the open areas are invaded by natural forest regrowth,and the farm buildings decay (Daugstad, Ringdal, Rønningen and Skar2002; Gaukstad 2000; Rønningen 2005; Soliva, Rønningen, Bella, Be-zak, Cooper, Flø, Marty and Potter 2008 (forthcoming)). Such an out-come is feared by the tourism industry because it threatens the basicattractions and qualities for development. The rural citizen, most espe-cially the farmer, is seen to have a significant role as steward, or custo-dian, of the qualities of the landscape (Daugstad et al 2006). Thecustodian is also an important ‘‘verifying element’’ for tourists seekingthe authentic ‘‘real’’ country life (Hall, Kirkpatrick and Mitchell 2005;Nilsson 2002). The interaction between the host and the guest is cru-cial—it is the farm or village lifestyle which is being sold—‘‘the manbehind the farm’’ rather than merely the activities offered (Nilsson2002:10). A ‘‘living countryside’’ is comprised of the resource base aswell as the expected output from rural tourism (Garrod et al 2005).

In this case, farmers, and representatives of farmers or agriculturalinterests, take a position in the landscape. This position may representan economic or utilitarian perspective, based on the structural changesand the viability consequences for farm-based economies. The tourist’sperspective, on the other hand, is traditionally rooted in a romantic andnostalgic externalized view focusing on visual qualities seen from a dis-tance. Rural tourism can be seen as an arena where landscape viewsand perceptions are negotiated between farmers and tourists. The out-come of this negotiation may be that the views are adjusted to each otherand a compromise is reached, or that the views remain separate. Theoutcome in the landscape may be that its physical and aesthetic qualitiesare changed as a result of such negotiations. Based on this line of argu-ment, the questions asked in this study are: How do organizations repre-senting farmers, operators, and tourists perceive the rural landscape asan asset in rural tourism? Or, more specifically, how is landscape pre-sented and represented for tourism purposes? What happens in thenegotiations between the representatives of farmers, operators, andtourists with regard to the aesthetic qualities of rural landscape andoperating rural activities? Is it possible to identify agreement with regardto proper presentation of the rural landscape for tourism purposes?

UNDERSTANDINGS OF LANDSCAPE

The word ‘‘landscape’’ has a range of connotations and interpreta-tions. As a field of research, landscape studies—especially within the


discipline of geography—are complex, indeed somewhat chaotic. How-ever, the different traditions of conceptualizing it offer useful tools foranalyzing and understanding the issues raised in this article. This vari-ety is especially useful in relation to the closely interlinked dimensionsof seeing landscape from the ‘‘outside’’ and ‘‘inside’’ and the role ofvisuality vs. activity. The visual lopsidedness in landscape geography,and, many argue, for geography in general (Cosgrove 1984; Lippard1997; Rose 1993), is fairly obvious. Geographical knowledge is oftenpresented visually, for instance in maps, photographs, paintings, andGIS-based systems. This visual base can be traced back to the Renais-sance cartography and landscape painting traditions that developedin Italy. The perspective of linearity became the accepted way of seeing,interpreting, and understanding landscape, and, expressed throughpaintings, this visual form of representation was situated in a systemof power. Patrons and the landed elite in Italy and other powerful na-tions symbolized their control over the landscape and people throughthe abstract, geometrical, and distanced organizing of space as de-picted by painting (Cosgrove 1984; Cosgrove and Daniels 1988; Daugs-tad 1999; Rose 1993). The view of the landscape was visual andgenerated externally.

The ‘‘new cultural geography’’ or ‘‘the linguistic turn’’ in the 80s(Mitchell 2000) represented a different approach to understandingor conceptualizing landscape. It represented a critique of the materialtradition, where the physical changes were the subject matter of inves-tigation rather than the agents causing the changes. Landscape isnow commonly studied as a representation of ideology, value judg-ments, or a symbol of power; the major focus is not on the landscapeitself, but on how it serves as a medium for expressing social and mentalconstructions (Cosgrove 1984, 1985; Cosgrove and Daniels 1988; Dun-can 1995; Duncan and Ley 1993; Rose 1993). This new turn has beencriticized because it reproduces a visual ideology (stemming from thepainting tradition) and is not as critical as it set out to be. This can inturn be related to the general ontological ‘‘hegemony of vision’’ orthe ‘‘spectacularization of life’’ in Western culture over the past severalhundred years, with the eye as the sole medium for perceiving and gain-ing knowledge on nature and life in general (Lefebvre 1991; Rorty 1980;Tuan 1993). Within the field of tourism studies, the visual hegemony isexpressed in terminology such as ‘‘the tourist gaze’’ and ‘‘place con-sumption’’ (Urry 1995, 2001). As well as being Western-dominated,the visual ideology in landscape studies is arguably based on a male view,seeing the landscape as an object (Rose 1993). According to Urry,

the emphasis of the visual. . .impoverishes the relationship of the bodyto its physical environment and over-emphasizes masculinist efforts toexert mastery, whether over the female body or over nature. By con-trast it is claimed that a feminist consciousness less emphasizes thedominant visual sense and seeks to integrate all of the senses in amore rounded consciousness (1999:40).

The cultural turn and the consequent critique has brought to thefore another conceptualization. This approach is partly a revival of


the materiality or the organic landscape which has been criticized as aneglected focus of research in the new cultural geography (Demeritt1994; Duncan 1995; Olwig 1996). Duncan (1995) sees this materialityas part of an agrarian or rural landscape tradition. However, the ruraland vernacular tradition had been transformed to a somewhat elitistform in the visual representations of the mid-16th century Dutch land-scape paintings. But compared to the Italian Renaissance painting tra-dition built on heroism and abstraction, the Dutch approach was morerealistic, conveying images of people working with nature in everydaylife (Setten 2000). According to Ellenius (1992) this was part of a more‘‘intimate’’ and realistic northern European approach. The notion of aNordic landscape concept has been picked up by several authors(Arntz 1999; Olwig 2000; Setten 2000). According to Olwig (2000), thisis linked to a physically defined area, a landscape, and also to the cul-tural and social traditions which confirm people in their belonging—or feeling of territoriality—within this area. The social and culturalphenomena of landscape laws and customs are inscribed in the Nordiclandscape. A landscape is a territory ‘‘framing’’ action. Therefore, theNordic landscape concept can be seen as a bridging concept combin-ing materiality and representations, and visuality as well as activity.

Based on the literature above, three perspectives will be guiding thisarticle, with the revitalization of an outside-inside perspective as thefirst one. This has been proven a fruitful analytical framework in sev-eral studies. As part of the constructivist-dominated research, represen-tations have been studied from a standpoint outside or inside of thelandscape in question. This approach has been applied in studies ofthe agriculturally influenced landscape as well as for other types there-of (Daugstad 1999; Kianicka, Buchecker, Hunziker and Muller-Boker2006; Olwig 2002; Setten 2002; Sovali, Palang, Peil and Vermandere2003; Stenseke 2000). The insiders’ perspective tends to be activity-ori-ented; insiders are actively changing the landscape by various types ofwork on the land. Hence, there is a notion of the embodied landscapeand also a focus on local and situated knowledge. The typical insider inthese studies has been the farmer. The typical outsiders’ perspective isoften that of the tourist. The latter is experiencing the landscape froma certain distance and mainly through the eye. The visual images areimportant—relating to the landscape as an object, a painting, or a pic-turesque scene. The outsider is often not attached to a specific land-scape, has no or very limited situated knowledge about the socialfabric ‘‘behind’’ it (how it is produced and maintained), and is notan active landscape-changing agent.

Second, the dialectic between outsiders and insiders, as derived fromthe conceptual elaborations above, relates to Maoz’ (2005) concept of‘‘the mutual gaze’’, implying that locals also influence tourists even ifthe tourist gaze holds the power. She relates the use of different gazeconcepts to time:

The tourist gaze, an old and by now much used phrase, was inventedat a time when the tourist was the more important aspect of scholarlystudies in the field. The local gaze emerges as research attention is


turned to the locals as agents of power of their own. The term mayhelp to view a more complex, double-sided picture, where both thetourist and local gazes exist, affect, and feed each other and theencounter they produce (2005:235).

Third, the last aspect guiding the analysis is the challenged hege-mony of visuality in perceiving as well as researching landscape. Por-teous introduces a range of sensescapes, such as smellscape,soundscape, tastescape, touchscape, or bodyscape. He relates the dif-ferent sensescapes to distance:

Vision is the intellectual sense. It structures the universe for us, butonly ‘‘out there’’ and ‘‘in front’’. It is a cool, detached sense, andsight alone is insufficient for a true involvement of self with world.In sharp contrast, the non-visual worlds surround the sensor, evenpenetrate the body, and have far greater power to stir the emotions(1990:7).

If one is in the landscape, the sensory system can register smell, taste,or touch, sound can be detected from afar, but sight is the single mosteffective sense, long-distance. Tuan (1993) points out that if one isfamiliar with a landscape and it comes out as ordinary, other sensesthan sight may come to the fore. If one is unfamiliar with the land-scape, the experience is mostly visual. Smell is especially effective inevoking childhood memories, as Urry (1999) points out. Tucker docu-ments how a nature site in Turkey is experienced in a multi-sensoryway: ‘‘In addition to gazing upon the landscape, eating, smelling, lis-tening, and especially crawling and clambering amongst the cavesare all ways in which Goreme’s environment is experienced’’(1997:110).

These guiding aspects will help to investigate what happens when thetourist gaze meets the agrarian or farmer’s gaze. Will the stereotypes ofthe rural idyll and the visual qualities be produced and perceived, orcan a more modified landscape representation be detected amongstthe key actors? Do the different views clash?

Study Methods

Based on the above three perspectives (the revitalization of an out-side-inside perspective; the dialectic between outsiders and insiders(or the locals); the changing hegemony of the visual) the actors’ viewsand representations will be analyzed according to the following dimen-sions as indicators of landscape views, conceptualizations, and perspec-tives: First, landscape values and requirements given attention, second,how landscape is experienced (by sight, sound, smell, taste, touch),and third, discussion of the development processes and futureprospects.

The study is based on an analysis of documents representing the keyactors within rural tourism. They are the Norwegian Tourist Associa-tion (NTA), the Norwegian Rural Tourism and Traditional Food(NRTTF), the Norwegian Farmers’ Union (NFU), and the Ministry

Table 1. Key Actors and Material Studied

Tourism Actors Material Studied Agricultural Actors Material Studied

NTA (the NorwegianTourist Association)

MagazineFjell og Vidde(2003-2005)

NFU (NorwegianFarmers’ Union)

Newspaper Bondebladet(2003-2004), website,strategic documents

NRTTF (NorwegianRural Tourism andTraditional FoodOrganization)

Printed catalogue(2004-2005),website

MAF (Ministryof Agricultureand Food)

Website, documents,campaign material,project reports


of Agriculture and Food (MAF) (Table 1). The national key actors rep-resenting tourism and agriculture are powerful mediators of how land-scape is interpreted and perceived, and in many ways set a ‘‘standard’’for how tourists and farmers as individuals perceive, present, and rep-resent landscape. Hence it is important to investigate the nature ofthese influential forces.

The NTA is the largest recreation organization in Norway, with morethan 200,000 individual members (organized in 50 local branches; thelargest number of members are found in urban areas). The associationis a hikers’ organization for people interested in the outdoors, but amajor part of the organization’s activity is to operate its more than400 cabins. These are run by employing cabin managers from the localcommunity and students on summer jobs. They are located all over thecountry, mostly in mountainous areas, and provide accommodation forhikers. This is a profit-based activity and a good source of income forNTA (Den Norske Turistforening 2005). The association publishes amagazine for and partly by its members called Fjell og Vidde (Mountainand Moor). Articles are written mainly by journalists employed by themagazine, and also by members, cabin hosts, or representatives of theNTA board and administration. Six issues are published each year. Forthis study, the 2003, 2004, and 2005 volumes have been analyzed. Arti-cles addressing matters related to agricultural activity or agriculturally-influenced landscapes have been selected for further analysis, whichgives a total of 17.

The NRTTF has close to 500 members who are rural tourism provid-ers in some sense (Landbruks- og matdepartementet 2004b). Almost60% of the members offer accommodation, just over 40% have a farm-shop (selling their own produce), and about a third offer a variety ofactivities and adventures (NRTTF 2006). The major purpose of theorganization is to present and market their members’ enterprises viathe Internet and a printed catalogue. These list the various productsavailable county by county. They also provide information aboutaccommodation, cafes, restaurants and other food outlets, traditionalfarm food shops, and various leisure activities (fishing, hunting, boat-ing, riding, and the like). The catalog for 2004 and 2005 and the web-site have been analyzed as part of this study.


The organizations representing the agricultural interests are theNFU and the MAF. NFU, the major farmers’ union in Norway, has58,500 members (Norges Bondelag 2005). Its newspaper, Bondebladet(The Farmers’ Paper), is published once a week (with a circulationof 83,000 copies) and is sent to all members as well as to agriculturaldepartments in counties and advisory offices. Bondebladet serves as botha newspaper and a professional journal for Norwegian farmers (Bonde-bladet 2005). It contains articles addressing farmers’ situation and agri-political issues, and this illustrates the view of the organization. In thisstudy, an analysis was conducted of the 50 articles that were found fromthe years 2003 and 2004 that focused upon rural tourism, cultural land-scape, and cultural heritage connected to agriculture. In addition,other important documents from the NFU have been studied, like stra-tegic plans and website information. The MAF is the national authorityfor the agricultural sector and in practice is an important ministry forrural tourism, since much of its funding and support system is orga-nized under MAF. This is the case even though tourism in general isthe responsibility of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The relevantpolicy documents, campaigns, and projects, especially those targetingrural tourism in recent years, have been studied.

Regarding the textual analysis, all documents (plans, catalogues, andnewspaper and magazine articles) have been analyzed systematicallyand manually in order to reveal views on landscape. There is a partic-ular focus on how the texts relate to the three dimensions under con-sideration. The analysis investigates how the landscape concept is usedand understood explicitly (in terms of visual qualities or other quali-ties, landscape as nature, as culture, and so on), how the topic of land-scape is addressed implicitly (through general descriptions of theenvironment and surrounding areas), how landscape-related issuesare approached in positive or negative terms and what values are high-lighted (for example, economic values, experiential values, ecologicalvalues), and how the relation between landscape development and hu-man actors is addressed (that is, who the main ‘‘landscape agents’’are). In addition to the presentations in the text, photographs andother illustrations are studied as part of the visual representations.All texts are in Norwegian and the quotations in this article have beentranslated by the author. Altogether this material will help to depicthow influential national actors in the national discourse on rural tour-ism present and represent landscape.

Landscape Values and Requirements

The stereotypical divide between insiders and outsiders as landscapeproducers vs. consumers or spectators is challenged by recent develop-ments in the tourism industry. However, landscape views and under-standings are often deeply rooted in a society and hence in the keyactors studied. Is there a detectable difference between insiders andoutsiders? To what extent are insiders and outsiders explicitly identi-fied? Are tourists actively engaging with the landscape, and do the


tourism providers present and develop their product according to newconsumers’ needs?

The overall impression gained from the texts by NTA is a view of thelandscape from the outside tourists’ perspective, the classical ‘‘specta-cularization’’. In the texts, a notion of a divide between ‘‘them’’ (thelocals, the farmers) and ‘‘us’’ (the association) can be detected. Theinsiders are identified as farmers and local people with long traditionsin resource use. The process of using the land and cultivating naturecontributes to desirable landscapes available for ‘‘consumption’’ bytourists. The insiders are acknowledged as stewards of the land andare depicted by the NTA as having an active role as landscape-changingagents. Nature and culture are appreciated for their experiential qual-ities. Regarding its landscape requests, the texts from the association’smagazine repeatedly present the provision of recreational and physicalactivities as a key requirement of rural spaces from the tourists’ per-spective. This is also expressed through photos of people on hikes orfishing tours, and the like.

The texts in the catalogues from NRTTF are written to invite touriststo engage with the landscape, to visit and take part in activities such asriding and fishing. It highlights how farmers also engage with the land-scape. Active farming and actively run farms are frequently mentionedas adding to the attractiveness of the landscape. Examples from its cat-alogue are: ‘‘Stay on a traditional working farm in Norway’’, ‘‘A tradi-tional dairy cattle farm . . . offers Norwegian romanticism in quaintrural surroundings’’, and ‘‘Working farm with Telemark cattle [a na-tive breed], sheep, horses, and other livestock. Ideal for children’’

Figure 1. Tourists in Close Encounter with Animals


(NRTTF 2005:33, 48, 86). The pictures represent the various places tovisit; apart from depictions of grazing livestock and farm buildings,they portray people engaged in the landscape, like taking part in farmwork or playing with animals, and people horse-riding (Figure 1). Thescenes are sun-lit and picturesque and evoke a sense of nostalgia and arural idyll, inviting comparison with national romantic landscape paint-ings. The weight given to traditional or ‘‘old’’ features is further en-hanced through the promotion of selected cultural heritage, such asaccommodation in a listed building or visiting a traditional culturallandscape of special national importance (NRTTF 2004). For instance,the cultural heritage value in a more intangible form is activated at Mofarm, which is presented as the birthplace of Jørgen Moe, one of thefamous Norwegian folk tale collectors and publishers: ‘‘CharmingMo farm in Hole in Ringerike is the birthplace of Jørgen Moe. Thisis where he first heard the folk tales that he and Asbjørnsen were laterto compile as ‘Norwegian Folk Legends’’’ (NRTTF 2005:40).

The NFU approach, as expressed through articles in Bondebladet, isvery clearly located in the landscape. The perspective is that of thefarmers, who are represented as active economic actors, managers,and landscape stewards. The close relationship—or shared destiny—between agriculture and tourism is explicitly addressed. A joint effortfrom the two is said to have great potential for developing new nichebusinesses (with traditional food being a major asset in this respect)and strengthening rural life, but it is emphasized that the profit gener-ated should be for the benefit of the farmer.

An interesting example of how farmers themselves see their role inrelation to the combination of agriculture and tourism appears in aninterview with a couple at the Rekkedal farm in the fjord district in wes-tern Norway. The article describes how the couple stopped producingmilk at their farm and changed to beef production. This is less time-consuming, thereby making more time available for developing a tour-ism product. The Rekkedal guest farm offers accommodation and foodfor a niche market of consumers who are willing to pay extra for thegourmet experience and the historic surroundings at the farm (busi-ness meetings and dinners, anniversaries). The farmers are very spe-cific about presenting themselves as farmers. ‘‘We are farmers whorun a guest farm and not tourism producers with farming on the side’’(Asen 2003:20-21). The importance of the role of the farmer is empha-sized, even though traditional farming activities have been scaleddown. This is an interesting statement, given that many other studiesdocument the reluctance of farmers to turn to agritourism potentiallycompromising their identity and social role as traditional farmers pro-ducing food and fiber (Brandth and Haugen 2005; Daugstad et al2006; Schermer 2005; Stenseke 2000).

Even if the main focus of NFU through Bondebladet is the insider’s viewof the farmer, the outsider’s perspective is nevertheless addressed insome of the articles. One example of the typical outsider’s view of thelandscape as beautiful scenery, seen from a distance, is expressed in aninterview with the Managing Director of Hurtigruta, the coastal steamer.Hurtigruta is a shipline which travels along the coast between Bergen


and the northern tip of Norway. It is increasingly used as a tourism ser-vice, rather than for its original purpose of transporting goods andpassengers. The managing director is concerned about the large-scaleovergrowth of agricultural land and argues that it ruins the scenery seenfrom the boat (Sunde 2004). According to the director, who speaks fromthe perspective of the tourism industry, Hurtigruta should be the show-case for the best of the Norwegian landscape. This view is in contrastto the overall approach to landscape in the Bondebladet articles. The mainview is the farmers’, with no references to landscape in the sense of scen-ery or other metaphors indicating a visual ‘‘painting-reference’’ to land-scape. The only two exceptions are how farmers’ ‘‘enterprises’’ aredescribed (written by the journalist and not in the farmers’ words):the Rekkedal farm where it is stated that ‘‘a traditional-style stone fencewill be built to frame the farm buildings’’ (Asen 2003:20); and a descrip-tion of a prize-winning guest farm where the cultural landscape is well-maintained and where the journalist highlights the cultural, historical,and experiential values of the landscape (Sjøvik 2003:26).

When it comes to meeting needs in the rural landscape, the focus forthe NFU is upon the farmers’ need for income, and especially on thedesire for additional income from tourism-related activities, since theprofit in ‘‘regular’’ farming is steadily decreasing (Asen 2004a,b).The farmer is the main actor in rural tourism and, not least, the mainactor for taking care of rural tourism’s ‘‘landscape product’’.

The material from MAF supports the main impression gained fromthe NFU material; it has a very strong emphasis on the importanceof seeing agriculture and rural tourism as a whole, and a focus onthe utilitarian aspects of farming as an economic sector. Articles bythe minister in the NFU newspaper stress the need to upgrade tour-ism-related work from being seen as a rather insignificant source of ex-tra income for farm women working at the nearby hotel or campingground to being seen as a serious and necessary income-diversificationstrategy for the farm household as such (Aasen 2004a). ‘‘Lack of imag-ination is more dangerous to Norwegian farming than the challengesof the WTO negotiations’’, the minister states (Aasen 2004b:4)—imply-ing that on-farm diversification is necessary.

The move towards tourism is also reflected in MAF-initiated organi-zational structures between agriculture and tourism. For example, aspecial forum, presented on the ministry’s website, involving represen-tatives of agriculture, tourism, state representatives, and voluntary orga-nizations, aims to strengthen innovation and to facilitate thedevelopment of new products in agritourism. There has also beencooperation in marketing between actors in agriculture and tourismfor the past 10 years, supported by funding from the annual negotia-tions between farmers’ organizations and MAF (Landbruks- og matde-partementet 2005b). There is a collaborative project between theministry and NTA, which promotes the consumption of local food, atsome of the latter’s cabins. This project was launched in 2002 withthe aim of contributing to the development or maintenance of agricul-tural activity in mountain communities and of offering a special foodexperience for tourists at the cabins. This can be seen as a practical


alliance between insiders and outsiders. The project has been success-ful, with a documented increase of 20% in turnover for some of thecabins included in this project (Landbruks- og matdepartementet2004c, 2005a). According to the minister of agriculture and food ina website article, the project contributes to increased communicationbetween consumers and food producers, and serves as an excellentmarketing channel for local food producers. This is important forNorwegian agriculture (Landbruks- og matdepartementet 2005c).

How Landscape is Experienced

Have the key actors moved away from the distanced spectaculariza-tion of landscape to a more multi-sensory approach—a move alsoimplying that the tourists enter the landscape to make the sensoryapparatus work? This corresponds to the perception that there is agrowing trend for tourists to move away from the traditional outsideperspective of merely passing through a landscape and experiencingit only through their eyes. The modern tourist wants the personal expe-rience of tasting, feeling, and hearing stories about the landscape, andto experience it first-hand.

Even though the texts in the NTA magazine reveal a hegemonic vi-sual approach to landscape, like a stereotypical ‘‘outside’’ tourist, theyalso present the sensory perception of it and nature through touch,hearing, and taste. Experiencing it through the ear mostly refers tothe absence of stressful sounds associated with the urban—traffic, mo-bile telephones ringing—and to highlighting the peaceful nature ofthe landscape. A distinct emphasis is also given to taste, with many ref-erences to the local food traditions based on local raw materials whichmay be enjoyed at the cabins. The manager at Glitterheim cabin isinterviewed in one article. Its introduction states: ‘‘It is the smell ofreindeer meat, vegetables, and fresh herbs that meets you when youare hungry and tired, approaching Glitterheim’’ (Andresen 2004:78).The manager presents her focus on traditions, taste, and smell like this:‘‘It was my mother-in-law, the former manager of Glitterheim, whotaught me how to make tasty meat soup. We were always served thissoup when we came in from hiking. It smelled and tasted very good.Now I will delight my guests once a week by serving this soup’’ (Andre-sen 2004:78). An example of how taste and food are directly ‘‘inte-grated’’ in the landscape experience is shown in an article on amountain hike on the island of Alden in western Norway. A group ofpeople have brought food to one of the highest peaks on the island,and a meal is served there. It is presented as an orgy of food, andthe view from the ‘‘table’’ is described in detail, with a shimmeringsea, snow-covered mountains on the mainland, and sea-eagles hoveringin lazy circles around the island. The orgy itself is presented like this:‘‘While clouds come and go, happy and food-loving people dish outthe treats which they have carried up the mountain to the peak. Curedmeat, ham and scrambled eggs, home-made pizza, cakes, coffee, soda,strawberries and grapes’’ (Lindaas 2005:8). The event is depicted as a

Figure 2. A Farm Offering Rural Traditions


generous feast, not especially of local produce, but one where the foodis a major ingredient of the landscape experience.

The NRTTF can be characterized as presenting a ‘‘multi-sensory’’ ap-proach to landscape, according to the texts presented in the catalogues.Tourists are invited to engage in recreation and consumption of therural by seeing, tasting, and feeling the landscape. In the introductorytext of the 2005 catalog, the product ‘‘rural Norway’’ is presented:


Making a selection from this catalogue will bring you closer to natureand guarantee you an authentic insight into country life in Norway.You will be signing up for a unique adventure that only rural Norwaycan offer.. . . Visitors can experience home-cooked country food andpurchase products at farms throughout Norway. The profusion of tan-talizingly unique places to eat means that culinary adventures areoften accompanied by other cultural experiences, such as staying ina traditional Norwegian cabin, a converted barn or stabbur, a Saamitent (lavvu) or fishermen’s quarters (rorbuer) by the sea. Whateverthe choice, you can be certain you won’t find it anywhere else inthe world (2005:4—5).

In this catalog, food is clearly important; terms frequently mentionedin the catalogues, such as ‘‘real food’’ or ‘‘genuine food’’, have strongpositive connotations (Figure 2). The ‘‘genuine’’ is linked to local rawmaterial such as ‘‘the menu includes meats that are smoke-cured onthe premises, game, fish, home baking, herbs from nature’s garden’’(2005:30) and local food-producing techniques such as a ‘‘smokedfood buffet served from our own smoking oven’’ (NRTTF 2004:25)and they stress that they ‘‘bake in the old-fashioned way, using griddleirons and wood-burning ovens’’ (NRTTF 2005:37). Landscapes orlocalities described in terms of ‘‘soundscape’’ are evident in many ofthe enterprises described; one of them is the description of Hindklevfarm as offering ‘‘peaceful surroundings and magnificent views’’ andwhere ‘‘children can play safely in a traffic-free environment’’ (NRTTF2005:29). The main features are the view, the peace, and the safety.This is in keeping with the representation of the rural idyll as a refuge,as sought in the Romantic period.

As well as the lack of a focus on landscape per se in the NFU texts,there is also an absence of terminology or descriptions in the contextof ‘‘sensing the landscape’’. The rural landscape is clearly highlightedas an asset for tourism, but the texts reflect a more functional or prac-tical approach to the topic. Taste is implicit in the supportive presen-tation of local food enterprises.

The sensory aspects of the landscape are addressed by MAF, and aphrase much used by the minister regarding the renewed local orniche food focus in agriculture serves as an illustration: ‘‘Taste the cul-tural landscape’’ (Landbruks- og matdepartementet 2004a). This drawsattention to the link between food as a cultural landscape product andthe need for continuing food production to maintain attention oncultural landscape qualities. There is a parallel to this initiative, inthe English Countryside Agency’s ‘‘Eat the view’’ campaign. One ofthe aims of the campaign is to highlight the close relationship betweenfood and the countryside and to encourage tourism businesses to pro-mote locally produced food (Garrod et al 2005).

Development Processes and Future Prospects

Both nature-dominated and cultural landscapes are dynamic, subjectto changes of varying scale and intensity. Therefore, change is a centralaspect of perceptions and interpretations. How do the key actors


visualize the landscape of the future? How much do they know aboutforces causing change? Given the tourist trend of moving into the land-scape, does this imply that outsiders become more knowledgeableabout its social fabric? Do the different key actors agree on the properqualities of tourism’s landscape? Is the future of the rural still associ-ated with the representation of landscape as a refuge from the urbanlife, or is a more updated picture revealed?

The future of rural areas is a core issue in many of the NTA articles,mainly in the discussion of landscape change and the local food focus.Both topics support the ‘‘mutual benefit’’ argument between agricul-tural and tourism interests. Traditional resource use (related to farm-ing) is seen as a crucial feature of landscape maintenance, and thisgives the farmer a dominant role: absence of agricultural activity (mow-ing, grazing) causes overgrowth, which is seen as highly negative. Thisis described in an article by the NTA leader:

In our own country with an abundance of resources at hand we arenot able to prevent the closure of eight farms each day. . . . People des-pair, competence is lost, the role of rural custodian is weakened andthe landscape is overgrown. . . . This development demands a mega-phone. It is not the rural citizens who must call for help, but wewho mainly live in the cities must acknowledge our own responsibilityin maintaining rural settlement and rural businesses (Dahle 2003:44).

The NTA presents itself as a ‘‘mediator’’ between the rural and urbanworld. For instance, when commenting on the local food campaign atits cabins, the chair of the board states (in an article in the NFU news-paper) that ‘‘NTA can be a bridging actor between the urban areas andthe rural population’’ (Sjøvik 2003:32).

The NTA’s local food focus as presented in the texts in its magazinetakes two forms: gourmet food and traditional food. The former is mar-keted as exotic, innovative, and representing the creative utilization ofthe best of local raw materials. The local link is there, but not in theform of ‘‘traditional recipes’’ or a focus on the traditions at the specificcabin. The local is merged with the international, as expressed in theproduct description, ‘‘local raw material in a continental wrapping’’.This refers to locally produced raw materials being prepared with aninternational touch at a cabin where it is reported that people from13 different countries live under the same roof (Fjell og Vidde2004:77). The same cabin is presented in a later issue under the head-ing ‘‘With a taste of the world’’. Here, the food is prepared by chefsfrom Poland, Estonia, France, and Sweden, and the woman in chargeof the cabin describes it: ‘‘In cooking we use fish, meat, and cheesefrom local producers. With an international touch in the preparation,the result is very tasty’’ (Andresen 2005:54). The traditional food con-cept markets the fact that you can eat exactly the same dish that thefirst mountaineer was served when the cabin was built more than 100years ago—which is the case for Mogen tourism cabin in Telemark(Lauritzen 2003). This can be seen as a ‘‘nostalgia product’’ whereasthe gourmet product is a typical modern mix of local and global (‘‘glo-cal food’’).


In the NRTTF’s annual report for 2006, an increased consumerinterest in rural tourism and farm-based food products is documentedand of course strongly welcomed (2006). This agency, as a members’organization for, among others, rural food producers, emphasizes‘‘genuine food’’ in the sense of local raw materials and traditional pro-cessing techniques. Here, genuine food is another variant of the inter-pretations of gourmet and traditional food from the NTA.

For the NFU, the landscape focus is crucial in determining futureprospects for rural tourism. The discussion of the dynamic landscapeis couched mostly in negative terms with regard to the implicationsof agricultural decline and subsequent overgrowth. In such a scenario,both the family farm and tourism lose out. According to the managingdirector of Hurtigruta, the alteration of the cultural landscape will spellthe end for Norwegian tourism (Sunde 2004).

The agriculturally influenced landscape has been the focus of atten-tion for the agricultural authorities since the late 80s, through mea-sures supporting farmers as upholders of the cultural landscape andthe cultural heritage (Daugstad et al 2006; Rønningen 1999). The cul-tural landscape focus is still strong at MAF, and a wide range of mea-sures, projects, statements, and strategies described on its websitesupports a continued landscape focus as an important element inthe future of rural areas, in which rural tourism will have an increas-ingly important role. One example of how the landscape is dealt withas an asset is evidenced in a handbook for local authorities producedby MAF in 2005. The handbook is intended to guide municipalities’documentation of cultural landscape values and areas of special impor-tance, and in this way to increase awareness of the potential for tourismbased on the rural agricultural landscape and associated traditions.The landscape is presented as a very central dimension of life:

Everywhere we turn we are surrounded by landscape. How the land-scape is shaped is a result of a number of decisions. Cultivated landprovides food, and the agriculturally influenced cultural landscapeis of major importance for tourism, cultural heritage and identity,recreation and wellbeing, and for maintaining biodiversity (Land-bruks- og matdepartementet 2005d:1).

A Perspectives Dialectic

From the tourist’s perspective represented by the NTA, how is land-scape portrayed through the first two dimensions: landscape values andrequirements and how it is experienced? The material indicates thatthe Norwegian Tourist Association sees themselves as outsiders ‘‘shop-ping’’ for what a living landscape can offer. By and large, all the ingre-dients of the major rural trend are present: a turn towards ruralconsumption, the rural idyll, ‘‘local’’ qualities, and what is perceivedas genuine. The rural becomes a refuge from the hectic urban life.However, even if the tourist gaze is dominated by the visual natureof the experience, the qualities required extend beyond scenery at adistance. The array of perceptions is extended to more than ‘‘spectacu-larization’’. Silence in the soundscape is appreciated—which primarily


means an absence of urban noise. The appreciation of local food at itscabins discussed above marks a focus on taste; to taste the genuine.

Further, the analysis shows that NTA has an explicit focus on livingrural communities. They want to contribute to local economic develop-ment and preserve maintained landscapes as part of a good hikingexperience. The ideal hiking experience, as presented in the maga-zine, has moved a long way from the traditional attitude and behaviorof the tourist as a passive spectator. The NTA identifies a wide range oflandscape requirements: natural as well as cultural landscapes, activi-ties as well as peaceful recreation, and a wish for insightful knowledgefrom the actors living in and from the landscape.

Unlike the NTA with its large urban membership of hikers, the otherorganization representing tourism, Norwegian Rural Tourism and Tra-ditional Food, is a rural actor representing small-scale, rural tourism ac-tors, many of whom are farmers. The inside-outside perspective can beseen as a very traditional one, with the rural actors being the insidersoffering experiences to the visiting outsiders. However, in NRTTF pub-lications, the focus on outsiders’ interest in ‘‘inside qualities’’ is strong(feeling, tasting and hearing about the landscape). Elements increas-ing the attractiveness of rural areas embody all that is traditional andgenuine. Active farming is marketed as an asset and is also perceivedas signifying authenticity.

From the farmers’ perspective in NFU, they are clearly seen as themain actors in the areas of rural tourism that are linked to farming,agricultural landscape, and heritage. The shared destiny is acknowl-edged, but the tourism activity must be a source of extra income forthe benefit of the farmer. As mentioned earlier, the shift from a roleas farmer to a tourism entrepreneur or landscape provider is problem-atic for many farmers. However, for some the combination of farmingand tourism seems a ‘‘natural’’ way forward, as expressed by the coupleat Rekkedal farm. One interpretation of this could be that there is aself-selection process associated with which farmers end up as touristhosts. Those with the appropriate qualifications (personal or formal)and motivation to enter the service business can find a new niche intourism. In a Danish study, Hjalager (1996) shows that farmers mostlikely to succeed in profitable additional income activity, like agritou-rism, are the ones with a professional farming attitude, profitable ‘‘reg-ular’’ farming, and access to capital. A pressing question, when itcomes to future policies and state support, is to what extent can reluc-tant or less qualified farmers be encouraged to diversify into tourism?

Regarding the third dimension in the analysis—elaboration ondevelopment processes and future prospects—two mutual elementsfor tourism and agriculture stand out. The first is related to foodwhich, for the Norwegian Farmers’ Union, the Ministry of Agricultureand Food, and the tourism actors, is the enduring focus of attention.‘‘Taste the landscape’’ is a slogan that sums up the relationship be-tween the well-kept cultural landscape and the niche products the gen-eral consumer must be willing to pay for.

The second main mutual factor for agriculture and tourismemerging from the analysis relates to concerns about the overgrowth


of vegetation in the landscape. The changing agricultural land use,which has the potential to turn the scenic and highly regarded land-scape mosaic into forest, is a major concern for all actors in this study.The mechanism behind this change is also acknowledged: active farm-ing is needed to prevent the loss of the culturally defined landscapeand all it symbolizes. Here, the perspective of insiders and outsidersis the same; and the perspective in relation to the future change anddevelopment of landscape can be seen as being more in keeping witha Nordic concept than with the Italian Renaissance tradition. That is,the landscape needs to be entered, embodied, and filled with actionsor practice in order to keep its characteristics. A used and inhabitedone provides the scenery, or the landscape painting.

The high level of agreement on landscape development and changecan be explained by a number of interrelated factors. One has to dowith the type of agriculturally influenced terrains to which tourism ef-forts are linked. The agricultural landscape that is of special interest forthe industry is the most marginal and least industrialized landscape—characterized by a small-scale heterogeneous mosaic, and where themost sensible mode of production would be to maintain the statusquo. In the more industrialized agricultural areas of Norway thereare conflicts between agriculture and tourism, due to what is perceivedas less ‘‘tourist friendly’’ landscapes. However, compared to most otherWestern countries, the agricultural landscape of Norway is small-scaleand relatively modest as an industrial one. Possibly due to the physicalappearance of most agriculturally influenced terrains in Norway, andother factors such as the strong historic position of agriculture in thenational identity, recent studies on the issue of how to uphold land-scape qualities in different national contexts convey a specifically Nor-wegian view. This view is also to a large degree shared by otherScandinavian countries, Sweden, and Finland (Daugstad et al 2006).This view links the sustenance of cultural landscapes and cultural her-itage related to active agriculture, meaning a running system based oneconomic output and production of food and fiber. This again relatesto the mutual benefit gained from combining agricultural activity withtourism, which might characterize a Norwegian situation as distinctfrom that in other countries. In a wider context, for instance, as ex-pressed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop-ment in relation to the issue of multifunctional agriculture, thelandscape and cultural heritage values are seen as something separatefrom agriculture as a food- and fiber-producing sector. The landscapeand cultural heritage qualities are defined through folklore, tied tonostalgia, and not least seen as a tourism product (Daugstad et al2006).

Elaborating further on the documentation about the links betweenagriculture and tourism, and whether the mutual benefit argument isspecific to a Norwegian or Nordic setting, there is evidence both forand against this hypothesis. As reported by Fleischer and Tchetchik(2005), seeing or experiencing farm activities on rural enterprises onworking farms in Israel is of no special value to tourists to thatcountry. However, an aesthetically pleasing landscape and a tranquil


countryside are reported as important qualities in their perceptions, ina study by Walford (2001) in England and Wales, while MacDonald andJolliffe speak about ‘‘pastoral images of natural landscapes with relax-ing backdrops of farmlands and beaches’’ (2003:308) as an asset in rur-al tourism in Canada. It may seem that active farming is not an asset,although the landscape is. However, the physical features of the land-scape are not specified in these studies. For example, it is not clearwhether they are referring to a modern production landscape or an‘‘old-fashioned’’ landscape of pasture land and meadows, or whetherthe landscape under discussion is perceived more as ‘‘nature’’ (aban-doned from farming or remnants of natural landscape).

CONCLUSION

In a restructuring process, the roles of rural actors are recast. Thisimplies that different views and interpretations of the landscape meetin a different setting, views may collide or coincide, negotiations andcompromises may or may not be reached. The landscape consequencesmay differ depending on the extent to which views are common or con-flicting. The focus of this article has been on how views on landscapeare negotiated within the context of rural tourism.

Overall, one may conclude that the encounter between different ac-tors in rural tourism, representing agriculture on the one hand andtourism on the other, has led to both sides acknowledging mutual ben-efits, though not taking over each other’s positions. This is clearly illus-trated when all actors unite in their concern about landscape changeby forest overgrowth. While agreeing that overgrowth is of major con-cern, the issue is addressed differently by the various parties. The NTAlaments the loss of recreational values and visual scenes when the‘‘landscape painting’’ loses its heterogeneity, while the NFU fears theloss of income due to less attractive tourism landscapes. However, com-pared to what can be seen as an ‘‘extreme’’ outsider’s perspective,which depicts the painting as the ideal frame of reference, with no con-cern for the mechanism behind what the painting illustrates nor for itsongoing changes; the outsider, NTA, expresses relatively good know-ledge about the changing landscape and the processes that underpinthis. Or, to take the metaphor further, the association appreciatesthe painting (landscape) as well as the role of the painter (the farmer).

Another concluding point relates to the ‘‘multi-sensory’’ landscape.Tourism providers see the niche market potential for local food, whichin turn strengthens the farm-based economy and increases the viabilityof rural communities. ‘‘Eat the view’’ and ‘‘cultural landscape tastes’’are slogans that clearly express a link between the visual and the ediblelandscape qualities. Further, the landscape as soundscape is addressedin the appreciation of peaceful landscapes—especially with the absenceof urban noise, with connotations of rural tourism as an escape to a rur-al idyll away from the stressful urban life.

However, not much is known about ‘‘limits to growth’’ in thislandscape encounter. For example, if rural tourism providers further


develop landscape as an asset in this respect, is there any point in adevelopment process where rural tourism providers lose goodwill fromthe NTA and where they step out of their self-defined role as mediatorsbetween the urban and the rural? Can the genuineness of local food,experiences, and activities be compromised if the product is stream-lined and made more profitable for the tourism provider? Are therelandscape changes caused by the needs of a viable local communitythat do not go down well with tourists? As shown by Kianicka et al(2006), locals’ desire for economic development in their communitytends to conflict with tourists’ preferences for conservation of theirhideaway. With respect to alpine tourism in Switzerland, the tourists ex-pect the authentic. ‘‘Consequently, the tourists perceive exactly thosefeatures of the place as ‘typical’ or ‘authentic’ that have been stagedas such by the locals for the purpose of economic development—andare opposed to further development’’ (Kianicka et al 2006:62). Thismutual construction of place, a parallel to Maoz’ (2005) elaborationson the mutual gaze, results in locals integrating the ideas and needsof tourists in the vision of a preferred local development. Hjalagerpoints to a mismatch between tourists’ needs to revisit childhood expe-riences and experience their parents’ or grandparents’ pasts and thefact that modern agriculture is of a completely different character:‘‘The complete chain of processes involved in the production of milk,vegetables, or poultry from ‘plough to plate’ cannot be observed in anysingle place’’ (1996:108). The innovative response to this, as suggestedby Hjalager, is to reinvent traditions like setting up farm product shopsor offering ‘‘hands-on experiences’’ where tourists participate in bak-ing, weaving, milking, and the like.

Views on mutual costs or benefits between agriculture and tourism,limits to growth, and other issues implying negotiations on landscapeviews most probably have a demographic dimension: views may differaccording to age/generation, gender, place of residence, ties to urbanor rural areas, and so on. As emphasized by Petrzelka et al (2005), thelocal community is often treated as a single group in tourism studies,and this is empirically problematic. Similarly, the demographic orother relevant variables potentially accounting for variation amongthe locals must also be taken into account in studies of the tourist pop-ulation. Findings from the field of landscape preference studies fur-ther support that this is an area for continued research. A numberof preference studies based on a representative sample of the Norwe-gian population show that agriculturally modified landscapes of an‘‘old-fashioned character’’, meaning small-scale and not industrial,are preferred (Daugstad et al 2002; Strumse 1996). This is in accor-dance with international preference studies showing that the generalpublic prefers ‘‘old-fashioned’’ agricultural landscapes to industrialagricultural landscapes (Hoisl, Nohl and Zekorn 1987; Kaae and Hoj-ring 2000; O’Riordan, Wood and Charadrake 1990; Tress and Tress2003). However, a Danish study by Hojring (2000) may shed light onthe generation variable in documenting that college students preferredthe open industrial agricultural landscape to the more closed anddiverse landscape with hedges and meadows.


Negotiating landscape in rural tourism is a natural and necessarydialectic among different stakeholders, in which it is dangerous todefine rights and wrongs. However, it is very important to have struc-tures through which such negotiations can take place and conse-quently lead to well-informed decisions or actions affecting the rurallandscape. Two promising examples are the alliance between theNTA and MAF promoting local food at the former’s cabins and the spe-cial forum with representatives from agriculture, tourism, the state rep-resentatives, and voluntary organizations with the aim of strengtheninginnovation and facilitating the development of new products in agri-tourism. It is argued that this could also be a fruitful approach to en-hance dialogue in other national contexts.

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Submitted 17 December 2006. Resubmitted 2 May 2007. Resubmitted 15 June 2007.Resubmitted 22 July 2007. Resubmitted 17 August 2007. Final version 29 September 2007.Accepted 12 October 2007. Refereed anonymously. Coordinating Editor: Robert E. Wood

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