Arvid Viken

Name, academic degree:

Arvid Viken, cand.polit.

Academic title:

Professor

Affiliation:

UiT The Arctic University of Norway

E-mail:

arvid.viken@uit.no

Link to CV:

CV

Research Interests/Activities in the Winter project:

Hurtigruten as a winter tourism provider; the strategic transformation from transport to tourism between 2005 and today.Arvid Viken is professor in tourism at University of Tromsø where he is in charge of a Ph.D.-education in tourism. His main focus has been on tourism as social and cultural phenomena, and on the interface between tourism and the society and environment wherein tourism takes place. His empirical orientation has been the Arctic areas as Northern Norway, Sapmi and Svalbard, and he has focused on issues like Arctic tourism, northern tourism, indigenous tourism, place making, festivals and tourism destination development. Viken has during recent years been in charge of international oriented research projects on tourism development and has recently (together with Brynhild Granås) edited a book called Tourism Destination Dynamics. Tactics and Turns (Ashgate 2014). Viken has been and editor of a series of books on tourism in Norwegian, and has written chapter and articles in international journal and books within the field.  Concerning the Winter project Viken’s focus in on Hurtigruten as a driving force in the development of winter tourism in North Norway. Among the research questions addressed are:

• Hurtigruten’s strategies for visitor management and guiding? Development of policies and practices.
• Hurtigruten as a cruise tourism tourism provider; the relationship between cruise policies and practices (in the Arctic and Antarctic) and the Bergen-Kirkenes operation.
• How does Hurtigruten cooperate with and influence onshore tour operators?  What are the power relations?
• The interests and experiences of the Hurtigruten passengers
• Hurtigruten and local destination development; a case study of one or two ports of call.
• In what ways do the Hurtigruten tourists define adventure and how does the Hurtigruten product fit into this definition? How does Hurtigruten adapt to the romantic and exotic turn, and to what degree and how is this turn reflected in adventure tourism production and performances?