Footprints of an invisible population : second-home tourism and its heterogeneous impacts on municipal planning and housing markets in Sweden

Abstract: While public administrative systems are based on a principle of permanent residence, many people use multiple dwellings, such as second homes, in their everyday life. This mismatch makes second-home tourists an invisible population in the eyes of these systems, when, for example, distributing tax revenues or planning public services. The present thesis investigates the effects of this mismatch and its spatially diverse outcomes. It does so by studying how Swedish municipalities perceive and manage the impacts of second-home tourism, and how this tourism affects the housing market. The thesis is based on microdata of the Swedish second-home stock, longitudinal housing market statistics for 1999-2017, and interviews with civil servants from 20 Swedish municipalities.The empirical findings show that the impacts of second-home tourism vary spatially, but also over time. While all municipalities interviewed in the thesis experienced second-home tourism, there were noticeable spatial variations in the effects on, for example, planning, public services and housing provision. The patterns to this variation were particularly pronounced between periurban areas, sparsely populated areas and tourism hotspots. Periurban municipalities were most affected with second homes being converted into primary residences and the associated costs of that change. In sparsely populated areas, municipalities faced the opposite situation combined with an ever-shrinking population of permanent residents. Tourism hotspots had to manage the combined challenges of a seasonally varying second-home population exceeding the registered permanent population. The examined housing market statistics show a similar pattern, with considerable spatial differences in the market relations between primary residences and second homes. It also reveals growing regional disparities, with second homes driving or trailing overall price development depending on geographical context.To summarise, the thesis demonstrates how impacts of second-home tourism on municipal planning and housing markets differ and provides an analysis for the patterns of this variation. Based on this, it provides a number of proposals for policy change. The thesis also contributes to theory development on the spatially heterogeneous effects of mobile lifestyles, by conceptualising second-home tourism as an umbrella concept. As such, second-home tourism encompasses many different forms of dwellings, practices and impacts grounded in geographical and historical contexts. This emphasises the need for research, planning, governance and policy-making to recognise human mobility and the diverse spatiality of its effects.