Natural amenities and the regional distribution of nature-based tourism supply in Sweden

Nature-based tourism is often perceived as one of the easiest and readily-available tools for regional development and diversification of rural economies, and Sweden is not an exception. Successful tourism development, however, depends on various amenities, which vary with region. This article, based on a national survey among nature-based tourism service providers in Sweden, discusses general characteristic of Swedish nature-based tourism supply, reveals the most important natural amenities from the supply perspective and discusses the patterns of their regional variation. It is further investigated how distributions of various amenities is related to the density of nature-based tourism operations across regions. The scope of the analysis includes three levels: country, land and county. Results show that nature-based tourism in Sweden is a highly diversified sector, which demonstrates significant north-south variations, visible on the level of the three lands. On the level of counties, natural and human-made amenities are comparable in their power to predict distribution of NBT operations, suggesting that the border between NBT and other forms of tourism is not as distinct as is often imagined.