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568 Sweden
Wall, G. �1997) `Is ecotourism sustainable?',
Environmental Management 21�4): 483±91.
World Tourism Organization �1993) Indicators for the
Sustainable Management of Tourism, Madrid: International
Working group of the Environment
Committee of the World Tourism Organization.
Sweden
GEOFFREY WALL, CANADA
Tourism in Sweden is 80 per cent domestic. In
terms of inbound tourism, Germany and Norway
are the main markets. The 8.9 million Swedes have
a high tourism propensity, with imports twice the
size of exports. Main outbound destinations are
the other Nordic countries, Spain and Greece. The
national tourism board is a company jointly owned
by the state and the tourism industry.
Switzerland
LARS NYBERG, SWEDEN
Switzerland is a traditional tourism country, which
in the early nineteenth century earned a reputation
as `the playground of Europe'. The alpine charms
of the world's oldest living democracy, in a country
which welcomed foreigners, proved above all
irresistible to the English. The fact that the Swiss
at that time also happened to be innovative
pioneers in such key areas as the development of
mountain railways and grand hotels also helped. In
1844 Karl Baedeker, creator of the celebrated
travel guides, noted that: `Switzerland unquestionably
has the best hotels in the world.'
The Swiss maintained a near-monopoly of
international tourism based on alpine hotels right
up to the outbreak of the First World War. The
number of hotel overnight stays in 1914 was
greater than it is today. In the period between the
wars, Swiss hotels lost considerable market share. It
was not until the 1960s that Swiss tourism enjoyed
a renaissance. With major improvements in the
living standards of the Swiss themselves, many of
whom had moved from the countryside to the
towns and cities, a new domestic market began to
grow up to rival the tradition of international
tourism with its luxury hotels. Less serviceorientated
and more price-conscious, this new type
of tourism required an entirely different kind of
accommodation. The end of the Second World
War again brought new opportunities with the
democratisation of skiing, which allowed Switzerland
to position itself as a winter sports destination.
Since then, Swiss tourism has tended to cater
for all four seasons.
This restructuring, both exogenous and endogenous,
coincided with an unexpected boom
period in tourism. In most cases, the new demand
concentrated on the `flagship' resorts of the
earliest day of Swiss tourism, St Moritz, Interlaken,
Locarno-Ascona, Montreux and so on, all of
which can be easily reached by rail. The next
round of democratisation, courtesy of the automobile,
brought an expansion of tourism in terms
of the total surface area covered. However, the new
tourism resorts that sprang up after the Second
World War continued to revolve around winter
sports. The need to come to terms with the
external effects of a continuous tourism growth
which lasted right up to the end of the 1970s
presented the authorities responsible for tourism
and area planning with one of their greatest
challenges. It was at this time that a new
comprehensive tourism policy began to evolve,
designed to encourage qualitative as opposed to
quantitative growth. This policy today forms the
basis of the Swiss concept of tourism.
The arrival on the world scene of new destinations,
and an ever-greater competition in terms of
price and quality in the international market,
resulted in a period of stagnation for Swiss tourism,
beginning in the early 1980s. The efforts of Swiss
promoters were hampered by the high exchange
rate of the Swiss franc. Moreover, the mainly small
and medium-sized enterprises which are the backbone
of its industry had difficulty adapting to the
increasingly industrial scale of international
tourism structures. The prolonged recession
throughout Europe produced a real slump in the
industry at the beginning of 1990s. Since that time,
however, this crisis seems to have been resolved.
New government measures designed to encourage
a more innovative and united approach to the
international market, on a quasi-industrial scale,