Collaboration as means for sustainable tourism destination – A case study of Hardanger

The purpose of this study is to investigate collaboration´s role towards sustainable development at a tourist destination. To help identifying this, three research questions were identified, and the Hardanger region in the western part of Norway was used as a case. As a start to finding answer to the project´s purpose, literature was found and critically reviewed. This literature consisted of the three main topics: Importance of tourism, sustainable tourism and collaboration. To further answer the aim of the project, a qualitative research through a semi-structured interview was found to be the best approach. The questions were focused on the same three topics as were found important through the literature review. The interviews were transcribed and further analyzed through a thematic- and context analysis, using an open mind. The saturation level was then reached after conducting 12 interviews, with a great variation of informants, connected to all parts of the region. The findings of the research indicate to a great extent that the importance of tourism in the Hardanger region is high, and that the destination will not be able to survive without it. However, the development of the tourism industry today involves several factors and trends that are found challenging to the tourism actors in the region. One can see that actors are trying to collaborate but that the lack of resources and competence, and the fair of losing value to others is creating challenges to stay on track in the future development. Furthermore, sustainability is becoming more and more important in todays´ tourism development, but tourism actors are still not completely seeing the value of it in the Hardanger region. The majority of the informants find tourism development important. On the other hand, there are several possibilities for improvements in the Hardanger region