ETOUR 25 years | 2022 |
In 2022, the tourism research centre ETOUR celebrated its 25th anniversary. The environment today gathers over 40 people from about fifteen different countries. What started as an EU project in the hinterland of Norrland is today a strong international research environment with a high regional presence.
The story of ETOUR begins as early as the winter of 1995 when the Research Council Board contacted the Department of Tourism Studies at what was then Mid Sweden University about developing a strategic research program. Tourism education had been around since 1978, but we did not yet have our own research.
ETOUR inaugurated in 1997
In the autumn of 1995, the Ministry of Education and Research gave the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education the task of processing the proposal received, which was based on a powerful investment of SEK 100 million. In May 1996, an application was written to the EU, and the Government's budget bill that autumn included the proposed investment. On 24 April 1997, what is now ETOUR will be inaugurated, and through the EU's Structural Funds we had a budget of 90 million in the first years.
After the first programme period, the research initiative at ETOUR received support for a couple of more programme periods. Since then, public funding for the centre has gradually levelled off. Today, there are still EU funds, but not for the research environment, but for individual projects.
Comprehensive research on tourism
Already at the time of its formation, the ambition was for ETOUR to gather research on tourism in a multidisciplinary research environment. Traditionally, the subjects of tourism studies and human geography have dominated, but among our researchers there are also economists, political scientists, historians, ecotechnicians, etc.
In the first years, the research was conducted in four designated areas; business development, destination development, nature and natural resources, and culture and cultural resources. Now, 25 years later, it can be stated that these main orientations largely remain. In parallel with the research, there has always been a great ambition when it comes to disseminating and communicating what we do. In the beginning, there was talk of "knowledge transfer" and today ETOUR has its own communicator who supports researchers in disseminating and communicating results.
From college to university
In connection with Mid Sweden University becoming a university in 2005, ETOUR moved up from Kyrkgatan 43 to the campus area in Östersund and has increasingly become an integrated part of the university. Research is still conducted within the research center, but most of the researchers are also engaged in tourism education at bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels.
We can now conclude that those who were involved in starting ETOUR have largely achieved what they hoped for. Among the initiators should be mentioned in particular Bengt Sahlberg, who also contributed to drawing the history of the research environment. Many thanks to Bengt and everyone else who made ETOUR what it is today!
/Robert Pettersson, Centre Director ETOUR