Marketing works: a study of the restaurants on Bornholm, Denmark

Commencing in the late 1980s in Europe, regional development policy has seen a switch of emphasis from large automatic grants to attract inward investment projects, towards small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and indigenous growth. From a tourism perspective, this blends well with models of community tourism development, particularly in peripheral areas. The task of co‐ordinating local actions usually falls on public agencies, but development is often made doubly difficult because there is a dichotomy between the market stance of tourist bureaux and the supply‐oriented approach of small traders. Such is the case of the restaurant industry on Bornholm, which fails to match the expectations of the visitors in their menu structures. This article analyses the extent of the gap between demand and supply in terms of the visitors’ experiences.