Browsing by Author "Kyytsönen, Tiina"

The aim of this study is to review hide watching and to find out what type of people are interested and why they are interested in this activity. In hide watching luring the animals into sight is based on feeding. The activity is especially focused on brown bear, but also on wolf and wolverine. The study uses a dualistic approach, where authenticity and otherness play an important part when considering tourism. Also the shift from the fordist tourist, who favors mass tourism, to the post-fordist tourist who values the experience and the foreignness of it is remarkable in this context. When talking about authenticity in tourist space it is also important to pay attention to notion of staged authenticity. Hide watching is relatively new product in Finland and thus there have been only few studies on the topic. However, the popularity of this activity is increasing and therefore knowing the product, the customers and their motivations to participate is important in developing the industry in the future. In this study we focus on Kuhmo and Suomussalmi, located in Kainuu region. Mixed methods were used as is typical in case studies. The questionnaires directed to the customers represent the quantitative methods and the interviews with the entrepreneurs represent the qualitative methods. The questionnaires were sent to six service providers. Total of 121 usable questionnaires were returned and the response rate was 28.8 percent. The interviews were made with five of the hide watching entrepreneurs and with the sixth entrepreneur a smaller e-mail survey was made because of mismatched schedules. Most of the respondents, 53.7 percent, were foreigners, primarily from the UK and Sweden, with the remaining 46.3 percent being Finnish. The typical hide tourist is a Western European, aged between 30 to 60 years and has a higher education, often arriving to the destination with friends or a partner. Especially foreign customers have visited commercial, natural area wildlife watching destinations all over the world already before coming to Finland. The most important motives to participate in hide watching are to see animals in their natural habitat and to get good nature photographs of the animals. Most of the customers think of hide watching as an authentic, natural and a memorable experience. All of the service providers consider the watching situation to be as authentic as it can be in the given conditions. The features of the post-fordist tourist are quite well fulfilled as hide tourist are more experienced, independent and flexible compared to the fordist tourist. Also the values of the hide tourist are closer to the post-fordist tourist with high appreciation of nature and the search for the authentic and real. Most of the customers live in large cities which supports the argument about experiencing the other: nature periphery serves as a refuge from the stress and noise of the city. Many customers have visited wildlife destinations all around the world and next they want to see something new, like a brown bear. Hence Finland's periphery rises to wildlife tourist's consciousness as an excellent place to see this exotic animal. The authenticity of hide watching is partly contrived, because there are elements such as the hide and food that do not belong to the area naturally. However, these are essential for the tourist activity. Some service providers have improving elements concealed from the tourist view such as a boardwalk for guiding the animals into better sighting places. This can be considered as staged authenticity. On the other hand, compared to many other tourist activities, hide watching can be said to be relatively authentic.