Germans ' tourist behaviour in Sweden

Introduction Tourism literature tends to convey the impression that tourists are exceedingly active during their holidays (Thornton, Williams & Shaw, 1997; Shaw & Williams, 2002; Walmsley, 2004). This is the case especially when non-academic studies are considered (see for example F.U.R., 2007; Nutek, 2007). However, this assumption might be influenced by the methodologies employed and the cases chosen. Furthermore, it is often tourists travelling in larger parties that are studied, while individual tourists tend to be left aside. Also, many investigations have commercial goals, which increases the number of studies addressing issues of primary concern to commercial stakeholders. The results of this approach have led to tourism partly being described as the opposite of everyday life in social science literature (Quan & Wang, 2003).