Guiding Through Uncertainty : Climate Change Through the Lens of Swedish Nature–based Tourism Guides
Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis explores how Swedish nature–based tourism guides perceive and adapt to climate change, using a qualitative, hermeneutic phenomenological approach that combines semi–structured interviews with photo–elicitation. Fifteen guides, plus two additional correspondents, representing both winter and summer tourism, participated. They discussed their firsthand experiences with climate impacts and submitted photos illustrating environmental changes. The data was analysed inductively, following Moustakas’s framework. Findings showed that guides experience climate change as an immediate reality. Many described the recent winter's erratic weather–low snow cover, rain, and storms–which disrupted tours and conflicted with visitors' expectations. Photographs supported these accounts. Guides reported ongoing short–term adaptations, such as adjusting routes or offering summer alternatives, while expressing fatigue and concern for the future. A generational divide emerged: newer guides leaned toward climate–resilient offerings, while seasoned guides showed signs of resignation or considered leaving the field. Guides also took on pedagogical roles, explaining climate processes to visitors, often feeling guilty about tourism’s carbon footprint, and aiming to raise environmental awareness. Many cited other immediate ecological threats, like deforestation and overhunting, as equally pressing. The study highlights the value of guides' place–based knowledge and suggests that integrating their insights into adaptation planning would strengthen tourism resilience. Given guides' preference for local, community–driven solutions, support should focus on collaborative networks rather than top–down policies. Policymakers and industry leaders should recognize guides as key climate knowledge holders. Future research should track how guides’ strategies evolve in response to ongoing climate change.
Author: Debraekeleer, Robbe
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6982104740