Planning for tourism and outdoor recreation in Swedish coastal areas could be improved with knowledge of visitors’ attitudes, experiences, activities and geographical dispersion. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the knowledge of visitors in planning for tourism and outdoor recreation. The Luleå archipelago in Northern Sweden is used as a case study. Supervisors: Professor Lars Emmelin, Blekinge Institute of Technology/ETOUR Dr Peter Fredman, ETOUR. The Department of Spatial Planning, BTH deals with research on planning processes, environmental impact assessment, social issues, gender issues and applied information technology in spatial planning. The European Tourism Research Institute, ETOUR, Mid Sweden University, develops knowledge and expertise within issues related to travel and tourism. There are three main objectives: to conduct research on tourism-related issues, to analyse statistics on tourism and to make the research results accessible to the tourism industry. The research aims to develop the tourism industry and the institute is a resource for businesses, organisations and authorities. This project has been financed by the AGORA Interreg III-project Network Sustainable Tourism Development in the Baltic Sea Region, the Blekinge County Administration Board, the Mid Sweden University in Östersund, the European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR), and The Swedish Tourist Authority. / The Department of Spatial Planning, BTH carries out research on planning processes, environmental impact assessment, social issues, gender issues and applied information technology in spatial planning. The European Tourism Research Institute, ETOUR, Mid Sweden University, develops knowledge and expertise within issues related to travel and tourism. There are three main objectives: to conduct research on tourism-related issues, to analyse statistics on tourism and to make the research results accessible to the tourism industry. The research aims to develop the tourism industry and the institute is a resource for businesses, organisations and authorities. This project has been financed by the European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR), the Mid Sweden University in Östersund, and the AGORA Interreg III-project Network Sustainable Tourism Development in the Baltic Sea Region.

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Urban greenspace has the potential to bring a lot of positive effects to the urban environment. Better health for its residents, increased biodiversity as well as helping the city adapt to the changing climate, to name a few examples. At the same time, the current planning paradigm in Sweden values the creation of dense urban environments. This, coupled with the current housing shortage, creates a situation where urban greenspace is being put under a lot of pressure and on the risk of being exploited in densification processes. This thesis has explored how urban greenspace is valued, as well as which strategies are being employed, in comprehensive municipal planning documents. Through the use of a documentary content analysis, comprehensive planning documents from three Swedish municipalities have been analyzed: Umeå, Uppsala and Helsingborg. The results shows that the analyzed municipalities have a fairly balanced valuation of its urban greenspace in their comprehensive planning documents. No one aspect of the sustainable development is given a significantly higher value compared to the other. At the same time, different patterns emerges when looking at themes underlying the different aspects of the sustainable development, with themes such as recreation being discussed to a higher degree in comprehensive planning documents from Umeå and Uppsala, compared to Helsingborg. The strategies employed by the studied municipalities are also quite similar, although the details vary. All three municipalities are vague in describing their strategies for urban greenspace, but Umeå and Helsingborg goes further with working with quantifiable goals, compared to Uppsala.

National Swedish environmental objectives and detailed development plans A good built environment - a change of perspectives The aim of this paper is to analyze if the environmental quality objectives ‘a good built environment’ can be implemented in the municipal detailed plans and/or how it is done today. In addition to a number of interviews with people within the academy and government, a document analysis of detailed development plans has been done. As of today, you can not completely do planning based entirely on the environmental objectives and it is perhaps not desirable. In the study it emerges that there are uncertainties in what the environmental quality objectives really are and how they should be used, therefore, is also the implementation of the objectives to some extent different in the detailed development plans (if they are used at all). Within the environmental objective ‘a good built environment’ and its sub-goals one can find both concrete and more unsolid goals, as part of this, goal conflicts arise and problems with implementing the various goals within detailed development plans. Some conclusions are that short-term economic goals stands in the way for a change in perspectives that is needed, if goal achievement should be reached.

Crisis management has come into the public’s attention since the outbreak of thecorona virus Covid-19 in December 2019. The aim of this study is to describethe pre-existing conditions in three Swedish tourism-dependent municipalities with regards to their crisis preparedness. Furthermore, this thesis will explore what measures the municipalities undertake during the corona pandemic to helpthe tourism industry cope with the negative consequences of the crisis situation. This thesis has explored the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to Arjeplog, Malung-Sälen and Älvdalens crisis preparedness before the outbreakof the corona pandemic. With the use of municipal planning documents and qualitative interviews with key municipal officials the pre-existing conditions are presented to create a backdrop to how the pandemic and its effects on the tourism industry unfolded in the municipalities. The planning documents have been analyzed through the use of documentary content analysis. The results show that the municipalities crisis preparedness is influenced by prior experience in crisis management and that the municipalities crisis management organizations are very much alike. The tourism industry in the municipalities is heavily affected by the corona pandemic with rising unemployment rates and local tourism businesses struggling to keep from bankruptcy. All three municipalities have implemented similar specific crisis management strategiesto ease the negative consequences of the corona pandemic on the tourismindustry.

The purpose of this essay has been to highlight how a municipality, with a target of population growth, is planning and working with areas and spaces for physical activity. The method used to conduct this research has been a qualitative interview- and content study. To include spaces for physical activity in the planning phase has shown to have positive effects on people’s health which also can results in a positive impact on the wider society. Like many other municipalities in Sweden Skellefteå is working towards a population growth target. The development strategy to reach this target has a focus on densification. Densification can have several positive effects, but densification processes in cities can also lead to increased pressure on the remaining areas for physical activity. The results of the study have shown that Skellefteå municipality hasn’t had any tangible conflicts regarding how to use existing areas for physical activity, although some tendencies of potential future conflicts have started to emerge. The results of the study have also shown that several different factors impact people’s access and possibility to engage in psychical activity and that the access to areas for sports activities is dependent on what sport activity is being discussed.

In Sweden 16 environmental objectives has been adapted to improve sustainability and assure that future generations has access to a healthy living environment without adding environmental pressure outside the Swedish borders. Snow handling occurs yearly and can be seen to affect several of these objectives and local environment. The municipalities have the responsibility to assure that clearing of snow is carried out and that the snow is deposited according to Swedish laws. This calls for choosing locations for snow deposits in a suitable manner. This study therefore aims to build a generic model in geographic information systems to find suitable places to deposit snow that can increase sustainability by using a simple multi criteria analysis and easy accessible data. The model uses constraints, as only using open land and excludes cultural heritage sites and nature reserves, and factors as visibility, availability, salt contamination and infiltration, for indicating suitable areas for snow depositing. The model was tried on Lidingö municipality to evaluate the result and the resulting suitability map shows good results by indicating areas that can be used for snow deposits but also some areas that aren’t possible to deposit snow on. The model works well with generic data for planners in the early stages of planning and can with some modifications to local properties and general factors be even more specific to point out suitable areas for snow deposits.

In an increasingly global world, the competition to attract visitors to a destination is hard. The hospitality industry is for many destinations an important factor for employment and economic growth. The purpose of the thesis was to investigate how the hospitality industry is represented in Swedish municipalities' policy documents. The study was conducted through a critical discourse analysis of four municipalities' planning documents. The discourse analysis was followed by a thematic analysis to link the results to previous research and literature in the hospitality industry and municipal planning.  The results of the study showed that the selected municipalities included the hospitality industry in their planning to varying degrees. For some municipalities the hospitality industry was included in the business sector, while for other municipalities it was part of the leisure and recreation sector. The study also showed that the regional strategies have a certain impact on the municipality's strategies in the hospitality industry. Even though the municipalities included in this study are part of the same region, the strategies are expressed in different ways. Finally, the discourse analysis showed that the hospitality industry is to a large extent included in the plan proposals but is not always followed up in the plan for implementation.

This essay aims to study the cooperation between the municipalities Linköping and Norrköping. The two municipalities, located in the county Östergötland, have been working with the aim to be looked upon as the fourth metropolitan area in Sweden. The collaboration has been inprogress since the beginning of the 21st century. Before that the municipalities have been in rivalry with one another about which city is the biggest in Östergötland. To study this relatively new collaboration I have performed interviews with four officials in the municipalities, two planners and two business managers about how they cooperate, what the purpose is and what the goal with the collaboration is. The officials presented what they consider to be the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the spatial context that could influence the development towards an integrated region. The officials were all positive to the collaboration and explain that the municipalities are much stronger and attractive together for both residents and businesses. With the new railway Ostlänken the connection between the two municipalities city centers as well as the big city regions Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö will be better which will be profitable to the development in this region. To be regarded as the fourth big city region in the country, there are certain qualities that the municipalities need to have. The integration between the cities and the identity of the region needs to be clearer and more developed. The future for the region is bright if the municipalities can keep up the dialogues and have a common alignment.

Urban planning plays an essential role in preparing cities to handle and counteract the climate changes – and connected consequences – of today and the future. Municipal ecologists are specialists in environmental protection and therefore carry a crucial role when developing contemporary and future cities. However, the literature on municipal ecologists’ partaking in contemporary urban planning in a Swedish local planning process has not been extensive. This study explores how municipal ecologists experience and view the main challenges when seeking to contribute with their expertise in local planning processes in Stockholm County, Sweden. The study also explores what kind of strategies municipal ecologists implement to handle these challenges. This study uses an explorative qualitative methodology and a thematic analysis applied to empirical data from semi-structured interviews. To revisit the research field, a focus group discussion of the result was conducted. Key findings from this study are that the main challenges municipal ecologists face are i) the organisational difficulties and capacity for prioritising ecological issues in municipal planning, ii) lack of regulatory framework and political support, and iii) stress due to tensions in local planning processes. The ecologists handle this challenging context by implementing strategies such as speaking through others’ legitimacy, creating authority, and articulating the values of ecology. This study contributes to the understanding of how ecologists struggle to contribute with their expertise in local planning practice. This implies the challenge of including environmental perspectives in local planning practices. Therefore, this study points to important aspects of where it is necessary to focus future efforts to better integrate an ecological perspective in urban planning.