Abstract
Urban-to-rural consumption-led mobility contributes to restructuring stagnating rural areas in Europe. Against this background, this article explores international rural place-marketing efforts by Swedish municipalities towards affluent western European migrants, exemplified by campaigns in the Netherlands. The analysis is based on the concepts of rural place marketing and lifestyle migration. Research methods employed in this article are observation and a survey during migration information meetings, followed by interviews with both stakeholders and migrants. The results suggest that rural municipalities with less favourable or unfavourable geographic conditions are the most actively engaged in international place-marketing efforts. Participation in migration information meetings and the Internet are the most commonly used communication strategies. The engaged municipalities are selective in their consideration of target groups. Attracting even a few of the ‘right type’ of migrants (i.e. families and entrepreneurs from affluent countries) over the course of some years contributes considerably to maintaining a small municipality’s population and economic viability. However, although stakeholders claim that the marketing efforts have been effective and statistics point out that the number of Dutch migrants has increased, it is hard to distinguish the effect of rural place-marketing campaigns from the myriad possibilities for migrants to gather information about potential destination areas. Therefore, regional policy makers may consider shifting their focus to actively receiving potential migrants who are in the final stage of their decision process.
Introduction
Less obviously attractive rural areas in Europe are facing challenges of depopulation and economic stagnation. A scenario in which Europe will have lost 50 million of its current population by the year 2050 may lead to socio-demographic challenges in almost a third of Europe’s regions (Klingholz, 2009). In these regions, ‘a shrinking public and private service sector, falling housing-values and concern for who is going to care for the elderly’ (Niedomysl and Amcoff, 2010: 21) may become increasingly common. Hospers (2011) terms this ‘shrinking Europe’, and prefers ‘warm’ marketing aimed at existing inhabitants over ‘cold’ marketing to attract newcomers (Hospers, 2010).
Simultaneously, intra-European urban-to-rural mobilities have emerged and developed (Boyle and Halfacree, 1998). These mobilities may include temporary (Buller and Hoggart, 1994; Müller, 1999) or permanent moves (Benson, 2011; Eimermann et al., 2012). As such, these flows may counteract social and economic effects of shrinking Europe in some, but not all, rural destination areas.
One ongoing process in rural areas that may also increase the area’s attractiveness as a destination for these flows is rural restructuring, often including a transformation from traditional to contemporary conditions of production and consumption (Brereton et al., 2011). As mainly young adults leave stagnating rural areas (Connell and McManus, 2011: 13), social and demographic change is both the reason for and a purpose of rural restructuring. Woods (2009: 72) argues that ‘the rural population today is in general older and more middle-class than it was 30 or 40 years ago’. A reason for this, according to Hall and Williams (2002: 19) is that ‘there has been a reification of nature [and] nostalgia for real or imagined past-lifestyles and landscapes’, which has contributed to new forms of mobilities towards certain rural destinations. Hence, urban-to-rural consumption-led mobility contributes to rural restructuring in Europe and elsewhere.
Recently, the above developments have been studied utilising the contested concepts of lifestyle migration (Benson and O’Reilly, 2009a) and counterurbanisation (Grimsrud, 2011; Halfacree, 2008; Mitchell, 2004). Lifestyle migration is understood as ‘the spatial mobility of relatively affluent individuals of all ages, moving either part-time or full-time to places that are meaningful because, for various reasons, they offer the potential of a better quality of life’ (Benson and O’Reilly, 2009a: 2). While lifestyle migration literature pays most attention to the motivations of migrants, studies of counterurbanisation focus on both physical patterns in different national contexts and motivations for counterurban moves (Boyle and Halfacree, 1998; Champion, 1989; Halfacree, 2008).
During the latest decade, research on internal and international counterurbanisation evolved around the question of how well the counterurbanisation story ‘travels’ (Bijker and Haartsen, 2011; Eimermann et al., 2012; Grimsrud, 2011; Halfacree, 2008: 485). In studies of rural population change in European peripheries, the concept of counterurbanisation may not be applicable in a similar fashion as in core regions of Europe and America where it was originally observed (Beale, 1975; Berry, 1976; Champion, 1989). For example, Grimsrud (2011: 654) argues that ‘there are other, possibly specifically Nordic, takes on the rural that could be examined for a better understanding of rural migration’. This article studies efforts to promote Swedish rural areas abroad, and studies of rural place marketing in a Nordic context (Heldt Cassel, 2008; Niedomysl, 2004, 2007) are presented in the subsequent section.
Advancing our understanding in this field, this article studies Swedish rural place-marketing efforts in the Netherlands, during six migration information meetings in the Netherlands from 2007 to 2011. Attention is paid to municipalities in the Swedish rural areas of Bergslagen (an old industrial area in Central Sweden) and Dalarna (Heldt Cassel, 2008; Jakobsson, 2009). In doing so, this article adds international dimensions to current studies of rural place marketing, while indirectly adding a Nordic dimension to the lifestyle migration literature, which usually focuses on places with a more favourable perceived climate (Benson and O’Reilly, 2009a).
Against this background, the aim of this article is to examine international rural place-marketing efforts by Swedish municipalities in Dalarna and Bergslagen towards affluent western European migrants, exemplified by campaigns in the Netherlands. Three research questions are addressed in this paper: (1) What are the locations and socio-demographic conditions of Swedish places engaging in international rural place marketing?; (2) What communication strategies are most commonly used for the promotion of the Swedish countryside in order to attract new residents abroad?; and (3) What are the objectives and target groups of the rural place-marketing campaigns? A fourth, rather methodological, question examines to what extent the effectiveness of such campaigns can be measured?
The remainder of this article is structured accordingly; the conceptual framework is elaborated before the research design is explained. The empirical section first concerns geographic and socio-demographic conditions of Swedish places engaging in rural place-marketing campaigns in the Netherlands and then considers how these campaigns are performed. Subsequently, the section addresses the objectives and target groups of the campaigns, followed by a discussion of measures of effectiveness. Finally, overall findings are discussed in the concluding section.
Promoting the countryside in a Nordic context
The study is based on two bodies of literature. On the one hand, there is a limited literature concerning the promotion of rural places in order to attract new residents. Since rural demographic, political and socio-cultural contexts may differ across the developed world, studies specifically dealing with rural areas in northern Europe are given most attention here (Heldt Cassel, 2008; Niedomysl, 2004, 2007; Niedomysl and Amcoff, 2010). On the other hand, literature considering the motivations of counterurban migrants offers relevant insights into the aspirations and expectations of the prospective target groups for place promotional activities. These motivations have been characterised as consumption-led (Hall and Williams, 2002), considering ‘the good life’ (Van Dalen and Henkens, 2007) and quality of life, or lifestyle related (Benson and O’Reilly, 2009a, 2009b; Boyle et al., 1998). In the remainder of this article, this second body of literature is referred to as (international) lifestyle migration.
Lately, increased attention has been paid to the rural dimensions of place marketing. However, promoting the countryside in order to attract new residents is not simply a variant of selling the city in order to attract investment and tourists (Ashworth and Voogd, 1990; Kavaratzis and Ashworth, 2005; Kotler et al., 1993; Philo and Kearns, 1993). In a study of Australia and the annual Country and Regional Living Expo, Connell and McManus (2011: xiii) state that they ‘extend and link issues of rurality, counterurbanisation, contested notions of rural gentrification and lifestyle migration, and rural place marketing […], to explore an innovative, organised place-marketing activity that simultaneously involves cooperation and competition among participants’. These are some reasons for differentiating between rural and urban place-marketing efforts in general.
Moreover, as noted in the previous section, it is worthwhile differentiating between different types of rural areas on a national and sub-national level (Grimsrud, 2011). On a national level, for instance, Boyle and Halfacree (1998) characterise the Anglo-American countryside as ‘post-productivist’, meaning that it has changed from a space of production to a space of consumption (Boyle and Halfacree, 1998: 1–17). In contrast, Cruickshank (2009), as cited in Grimsrud (2011: 654), speaks of Norwegian rural areas where ‘the idyllic sides of the rural are integrated with, rather than a counterpart of, rural production and economy’. These differences can be found at a national level within Europe.
The concept of the rural idyll can be understood accordingly, dependent of its rural context. Conducting rural studies in Anglo-American contexts, Halfacree (2003: 144–147), Short (2006) and Connell and McManus (2011: 18–21) have discussed commoditised representations of landscape and the rural idyll. The rural idyll is described by Boyle and Halfacree (1998: 9–10) as ‘physically consisting of small villages joined by narrow lanes and nestling amongst a patchwork of small fields […]. Socially, this is a tranquil landscape of timeless stability and community, where people know not just their next door neighbours but everyone else in the village’. In the empirical sections below, Swedish versions of the rural idyll and their use in international rural place-marketing campaigns are examined.
At a sub-national level, a range of similar rural typologies is presented. First, Bijker and Haartsen (2011) construct a typology of popular, average and less popular rural areas in their study of counterurbanisation in the Netherlands. Second, Hjort and Malmberg (2006) suggest a division between periurban and remote rural areas in their investigation of the selectivity of rural migration in Sweden. Third, a categorisation of different types of (rural) areas in Sweden – with favourable, less favourable and unfavourable geographical conditions – by the Swedish National Rural Development Agency (2008) is based on population size and trends as well as integration in labour market areas. These different types form the basis for addressing the first research question (considering the locations and socio-demographic conditions of the involved Swedish places) in the empirical section below.
The second research question considers the communication strategies used to promote the countryside. Niedomysl (2007) considers Swedish campaigns targeting the Stockholm metropolitan area in general before he provides examples of a marketing campaign brochure and articles in local and national daily press (Niedomysl, 2007: 705). Comparing similar studies, Connell and McManus (2011: 40) claim that ‘only apparently in Sweden have similar structures and strategies marketed places directly to households […], but not at an Expo’, before they present their study of the Australian annual Country and Regional Living Expo. Exploring Swedish municipalities’ place-marketing strategies, this article thus adds emigration expos in the Netherlands as a novel international dimension to existing rural place-marketing literature.
Studies of objectives and target groups of Swedish rural place-marketing campaigns (Heldt Cassel, 2008; Niedomysl, 2004, 2007; Niedomysl and Amcoff, 2010) serve as a basis for addressing the third research question. As far as the objectives are concerned, Niedomysl and Amcoff (2010: 3) take the ‘extended period of outmigration of young people, coupled with low fertility rates in these rural areas’ as a point of departure for their report. Claiming that future population decline in Swedish rural areas may only be remedied by in-migration, ‘rural policymakers are increasingly turning to marketing campaigns in hope of attracting new residents from more populous regions’ (Niedomysl and Amcoff, 2010: 3). Despite these developments, these authors argue that ‘there are strong reasons to foresee a negative population development in Swedish rural areas’ (Niedomysl and Amcoff, 2010: 21). In accordance with this claim and with Hospers (2010) above, Heldt Cassel (2008: 102) notes how municipalities attempt to create a discourse of attractiveness by selling itself to ‘insiders’ (i.e. the inhabitants).
As the images mediated through the campaigns (Niedomysl, 2007: 705) resemble those in magazines representing the rural idyll (Baylina and Berg, 2010), so may the objectives of those who mediate them. Presumably, the main purpose for municipalities to take part in rural place-marketing campaigns is to ‘sell the countryside, which is represented as a space for the good life – a rural lifestyle’ (Baylina and Berg, 2010: 28). Ultimately, this is expected to lead to an increased population and mitigation of economic stagnation. However, from a rural policy point of view, it can be questioned whether expanding the campaigns to target groups abroad renders more success.
Initially, as Niedomysl (2004, 2007) shows within a Swedish context, these campaigns were aimed at the domestic market, i.e. the Swedish urban regions. As far as the target groups are concerned, Niedomysl (2004: 2006) finds in his statistical exploration of Swedish municipalities and their domestic place-marketing efforts to attract new residents that ‘the most attractive category of in-migrants […] are families with children – clearly surpassing the highly educated or qualified labour’. Eimermann et al. (2012: 343) find similar characteristics for Dutch migrants who recently moved to the rural Swedish area of Bergslagen: ‘mainly adults aged 26–45 years and families with children under 18 living at home’. In this article, it is assumed that the target groups of the marketing efforts have similar socio-demographic characteristics. Moreover, in the Dutch context, Van Dalen and Henkens (2007: 56) suggest that these affluent migrants seek to escape the urban rat race, longing for what they consider ‘the Good Life: nature, space, and less populated surroundings’. However, the success of such international rural place-marketing campaigns is contextualised and questioned in the empirical section below.
In the context of the fourth question above, possible measurements of effectiveness of rural place-marketing campaigns are considered here. Niedomysl (2007) studies the promotion of Swedish rural municipalities, targeting the Stockholm metropolitan area in its search for new residents and return migrants. Based on pooled regression analyses and a case study, the author concludes that ‘no general evidence of success from the marketing campaigns’ is found, although ‘in a few cases a positive impact cannot be ruled out conclusively’ (Niedomysl, 2007: 708). Heldt Cassel (2008: 112) concludes for six municipalities in the Bergslagen area that place marketing in a broader sense has effects not only on potential tourists and in-migrants, but also on the existing population. These rather general conclusions indicate that it is a challenge to find appropriate and applicable measures of effectiveness for place-marketing campaigns.
In their study of domestic rural place marketing in Australia, Connell and McManus (2011: 85–96) discuss more concrete measures of effectiveness. These are: (1) taking account of the number of visitors to the expos; (2) engagement in internal marketing and identity formation within the exhibiting organisations; (3) increasing awareness of prospective movers’ motives, typically for first-time exhibitors; (4) inviting people to visit the municipality after the expo; (5) counting the number of families who move to a particular municipality as a result of the expo; (6) counting the number of enterprises that move to a particular municipality as a result of the expo; and (7) the ability to justify funding for attending another year. These measures are suggested by the exhibitors, while Connell and McManus (2011: 94) note that it is hard to distinguish the effect of expos from other migration dynamics.
Existing literature mainly considers domestic target groups, which inherently possess certain knowledge about the destination areas, based on personal experiences, pre-existing knowledge and media discourse. Although foreign target groups have expectedly raised their knowledge of socio-economic conditions for living in the Swedish countryside to a considerable level during earlier visits to Swedish rural areas, this knowledge is limited compared with the domestic Swedish population’s knowledge. Therefore, the Swedish countryside may lure more in-migrants from abroad than domestically (Swedish National Rural Development Agency, 2008: 32).
In sum, the following concepts are utilised in the analysis of Swedish international rural place-marketing efforts in the Netherlands: rural place marketing (Connell and McManus, 2011; Heldt Cassel, 2008; Niedomysl, 2004, 2007), rural idyll (Connell and McManus, 2011; Halfacree, 2003; Short, 2006), and lifestyle migration (Benson and O’Reilly, 2009a, 2009b; Van Dalen and Henkens, 2007).
Research design
The research design for this study involved both quantitative and qualitative research including a questionnaire survey, interviews with both stakeholders and migrants, and observations and analysis of promotional material, at the 2008 and 2011 Emigration Expos (EEs) near Utrecht and four Nordic information meetings for prospective migrants organised in the Netherlands by Placement in 2008, 2009 (twice) and 2011. Placement is a Dutch privately owned migration consultancy agency located in Norway (Placement, 2011a). Below, each approach is discussed separately.
Observations at meetings and analysis of promotional material
The aim of the observations during the six meetings is to identify the stakeholders’ place-marketing efforts and communication strategies. A content analysis of the promotional material (Hopkins, 1998) is conducted. Moreover, observation of various representations of landscape and the rural idyll is related to Rose’s (2007: 143) ‘discourse analysis I: text, intertextuality and context’. For this type of analysis, Rose (2007: 143) advocates that ‘a specific visuality will make certain things visible in particular ways and other things unseeable’. Thus, less attractive images of the Swedish countryside (e.g. rundown former schools and empty shops) can remain hidden from the target group abroad.
This method serves first as an exploration of the Swedish municipalities represented at these meetings. The basic information mediated through presentations and at the stands, combined with a study of the municipalities’ characteristics, is utilised to address the first research question: what are the locations and socio-demographic conditions of Swedish places engaging in international rural place marketing? The second research question (what communication strategies are most commonly used for the promotion of Swedish countryside in order to attract new residents abroad?) is also partly addressed through observations and discussions.
A questionnaire survey
In order to further explore the objectives and target groups of the municipalities (question 3), a survey was conducted during an EE in 2008. In total, 35 Swedish stakeholders were present at this edition. Besides municipalities, these stakeholders also represented regional councils, a Swedish multinational company and two privately owned migration consultancy agencies. As the study at hand considers Swedish municipalities only, 17 stakeholders, representing 76 municipalities, were selected for the survey. Sixteen of those responded, representing 71 municipalities (93%).
The survey consisted of open-ended questions and was structured as follows. First, general questions were posed: (1) What municipality or region do you represent? and (2) What is your function within the project? Then, the survey’s main section regards history, geographical orientation, objectives and target groups of the campaigns: (3) How long has your organisation been engaged in this project?; (4) Does the campaign target any countries in particular? If yes, what countries?; and (5) What is the purpose of the campaign in general and towards Dutch migrants in particular? A final question considers perceptions of the Dutch: (6) What makes Dutch migrants an interesting target group? For questions 4, 5 and 6, more than one answer was possible. The responses to this survey are categorised and utilised as indicator of the objectives of the marketing efforts and the stakeholders’ knowledge considering their target group.
As a result of observations and the survey, Hällefors was selected as a case, since this was the first Swedish municipality to engage in this type of rural place marketing in the Netherlands. Region Dalarna is selected as an exponent of regional marketing efforts, i.e. by a number of cooperating municipalities. More results are presented in the subsequent section. Meanwhile, after this 2008 survey, data collection shifts from the questionnaire to the interview study.
Interviews with stakeholders
In order to investigate the stakeholders’ objectives and target groups, seven interviews are conducted with municipality officials and project managers involved in the efforts by Hällefors (three interviews) and Region Dalarna (four interviews). The interviews were semi-structured and lasted for about one hour. The interview guide was based on the structure of the survey presented above. However, during the interviews the answers were discussed more thoroughly. Moreover, questions considering the political and economic organisation of the marketing efforts were added. Two interviews were conducted in situ, whereas the remainder of the interviews were conducted at the offices of the respondents. More information about the respondents is provided in the reference list. For reasons of integrity, the names of the interviewees are pseudonyms.
Interviews with migrants
The fourth and final mode of data collection for this article corresponds with the fourth research question: to what extent can the effectiveness of such campaigns be measured? The fifth measure discussed by Connell and McManus (2011: 85–96) in the previous section regards ‘counting the number of families who move to a particular municipality as a result of the expo’. However, as the authors indicate, it may be difficult to identify which families moved as a direct result of place-marketing efforts. Therefore, in the context of this article, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 Dutch families in Hällefors.
The interviews considered the decision and migration process in retrospect, focusing on the families’ information gathering and the role of rural place-marketing efforts by Swedish stakeholders in particular. Thus, these interviews provide insight into the communication strategies that have actually affected the decision process (question 2). In doing so, their usefulness as a qualitative and retrospective measure of effectiveness is examined (question 4).
The interviewed adult family members were born in the late 1950s or during the 1960s. They were aged 31 to 52 when they move. The children were born in the 1990s and early twenty-first century. They were between 1 and 15 years old when they moved.
Promoting the Swedish countryside in the Netherlands to attract new residents
Dutch emigration serves as an example of increasing intra-European urban-to-rural migration flows in this article. In 1995, 63,321 people moved from the Netherlands (Statistics Netherlands, 2010). Four-hundred and ninety-four (0.8%) of them were registered as migrants to Sweden (Statistics Netherlands, 2010). This figure increased both absolutely and relatively, to 1280 (1.4%) out of 90,067 in 2008 (Statistics Netherlands, 2010). According to the Swedish National Rural Development Agency (2008: 47), the distribution of the Dutch population in Sweden differs from that of most other in-migrants. The Dutch seem to prefer rather rural and sparsely populated areas over urban destination areas (Eimermann et al., 2012). This trend has encouraged several rural Nordic municipalities to engage in marketing efforts towards prospective migrants from the Netherlands and other affluent EU member states.
These efforts are particularly visible during EEs, a Scandinavia Day and other migration information meetings organised by Placement. This migration consultancy agency has been hired from the early twenty-first century by Norwegian municipalities on a project base. Subsequently, Placement has been engaged in projects in Sweden since 2004 and Denmark since 2010 (Placement, 2011a). The aim of Placement is ‘to attract Dutch and other families ideally consisting of adults aged 35–45 and children under the age of 10’ (Interview Vreeswijk, 2008). In 2010, Placement signed a contract with 11 Swedish municipalities, with the intention of attracting 200 migrants over three years (Statens Bostads Omvandling AB (SBO), 2011).
Locations and socio-demographic conditions of the involved Swedish municipalities
This part of the empirical section addresses the first research question: what are the locations and socio-demographic conditions of Swedish places that are engaging in international rural place marketing? In this subsection, first an overview of the municipalities and their locations is offered (Figure 1), before turning towards a short discussion of their socio-demographic conditions. Then, the cases of Region Dalarna and Hällefors municipality are discussed.
Swedish municipalities represented at Emigration Expo and other migration information meetings in the Netherlands, 2007–2011.
Figure 1 is based on observations during migration information meetings. Of 290 municipalities in Sweden, 164 have engaged in place-marketing efforts in the Netherlands in the first decades of the twenty-first century. In general, rural, peripheral and inland areas are overrepresented, whereas the urban areas of Stockholm and Gothenburg with adjacent municipalities are not represented. For this reason, the preposition ‘rural’ precedes ‘place marketing’ in this study. However, as indicated above, different types of rural areas can be distinguished.
The categorisation of regions with favourable, less favourable and unfavourable geographic conditions offered by the Swedish National Rural Development Agency (2008) is utilised for an analysis of Figure 1. The majority of the municipalities represented at EEs and other studied migration information meetings are located in regions with less favourable or unfavourable geographic conditions. These municipalities suffer from population decline and an ageing population. In general, these are municipalities with unemployment rates exceeding Sweden’s average (Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, 2012).
More specifically, this article focuses on a total of 15 municipalities in the Swedish county Dalarna and on Hällefors municipality (indicated in Figure 1), all of which are involved in international rural place-marketing efforts. The 15 municipalities in Dalarna cooperate under the umbrella organisation Region Dalarna. According to the Swedish National Rural Development Agency (2008), they can be categorised as follows: Avesta, Borlänge, Falun, Gagnef, Hedemora, Ludvika, Rättvik, Smedjebacken and Säter have favourable geographic conditions; Leksand, Mora, Orsa and Älvdalen have less favourable conditions; and Malung-Sälen and Vansbro have unfavourable conditions. As stated above, this categorisation is based on trends in population size and integration in labour market areas.
In 2010, the county of Dalarna housed 277,047 people, the largest municipality being Falun (56,044) and the smallest Vansbro (6805) (Statistics Sweden, 2011). The area covers 30,398 km2 (including water area), roughly the size of Belgium. The average population density is 10 inhabitants per km2, compared with 22 in Sweden as a whole, 401 in the Netherlands and 3450 in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam (Placement, 2011a). Smedjebacken and Hällefors municipalities are described as problematic by Heldt Cassel (2008).
Hällefors is located just south of Dalarna (Figure 1). The municipality has cooperated with Placement from 2004 to 2007. Parts of Hällefors have joined forces with the neighbouring municipality of Nora to promote themselves as Järnboås at the 2011 edition of EE. Over the past decades, the number of inhabitants in Hällefors and Ljusnarsberg has decreased by about one-third to 7220 and 4931, respectively, in 2010 (Statistics Sweden, 2011). Population density is seven inhabitants per km2 in Hällefors and 8.5 in Ljusnarsberg.
Hällefors and Ljusnarsberg are part of the Bergslagen area (Braunerhielm, 2006; Jakobsson, 2009), with natural amenities (Moss, 2006) and problematic conditions of population decline and economic stagnation similar to those in parts of Dalarna. In Figure 2, the municipalities are divided into three categories according to their population size in 2010. In all three categories, the population has decreased between 1990 and 2008. Population in small municipalities has decreased most (19%), whereas medium-sized municipalities have decreased by less (8.4%) and large municipalities remain almost stable (Statistics Sweden, 2011). This development is connected to the traditional patriarchal society in the area’s small industrial towns (Hedfeldt, 2008), which hampers adaptation to current conditions of the post-industrial countryside (Boyle and Halfacree, 1998; Heldt Cassel, 2008: 106–107).
Relative development of total population in the research area’s large, medium and small municipalities, 1990–2010. 1 (Index: 1990 = 100).
In sum, municipalities represented at the studied migration information meetings suffer from less favourable and unfavourable geographic and socio-demographic conditions. Hällefors and parts of Region Dalarna are no exception.
Most commonly used communication strategies
This sub-section addresses the second research question: what communication strategies are most commonly used for the promotion of Swedish countryside in order to attract new residents abroad? From observation, general discussions at the meetings and retrospective interviews with Dutch migrants in Hällefors, it appears that the Internet, EEs and other migration information meetings are the most commonly used communication strategies.
Since its first edition in 1994, EE is arranged as a private service sector initiative. Hosting approximately 300 organisations from around the world and attracting around 11,000 visitors annually in recent years, EE has become Europe’s biggest event for emigrants. The average age of the visitors is 38 years, 75% are married (with or without children) and 57% have attained university or polytechnic education (Emigration Expo, 2011).
In 2011, exhibitors from similar parts of the world are gathered in separate halls, for instance around a Mediterranean terrace, a Caribbean terrace and a Scandinavian terrace. Since Swedish destinations are increasingly popular for migrants from the Netherlands, a particular part of EE is dedicated to this and other Nordic countries (the ‘Sweden pavilion’).
Over recent years, the number of Swedish stands has remained stable: 15 in 2008 and 16 in 2011. However, while the Swedish exhibitors in 2008 represented 76 municipalities, this figure had increased to 131 in 2011. This increase is mainly explained by the participation of regional cooperations such as Region Skåne (in southern Sweden), representing 34 municipalities including the urban municipalities of Malmö, Helsingborg and Lund. In general, Swedish municipalities increasingly join forces, presenting themselves as regions rather than localities.
Swedish participants at EE mediate numerous commoditised representations of Nordic rural idylls (Figure 3). Related to this, stands are decorated with mounted wild animals such as reindeer and white hare, as well as moose antlers. Analysis of the contents of promotional material distributed at the stands and during presentations in conference rooms shows that nature and climate are widely utilised in the marketing efforts. For instance, movies and images are displayed showing Sweden’s grandiose landscape and magnificent nature. In this respect, the Dalecarlian Horse can be seen as a rural variant of personality branding (Kavaratzis and Ashworth, 2005: 512–513). Real coniferous trees and sounds of birds are added to give visitors the impression of a walk in a Nordic forest. In other words, mediating a Nordic rural idyll is amongst the most widely used communication strategies.
Mediating Swedish rural idylls at Emigration Expo (2011).
Overall, rural Swedish municipalities use similar strategies to promote their attractions as Heldt Cassel (2008: 111) indicates for domestic marketing campaigns: ‘good communications, low costs for houses, good quality of schools and services and an attractive natural and cultural environment’. The rural place-marketing strategies at EE develop in a fashion similar to what Connell and McManus (2011: 83) find in Australia: ‘over time, the orientations and strategies […] evolved from a more touristic focus on the aesthetic to a more prosaic yet vital focus on employment, housing and other services’. At EE, this gradual shift can be noticed in the emergence of agri-business stands in general and some Swedish exhibitors increasingly targeting specific occupational groups (veterinary surgeons, dentists, IT professionals, etc.). Thus, comparing the editions of 2008 and 2011, those Swedish exhibitors that participate at EE repeatedly have developed their strategies into more purposeful ones.
One of the meetings organised by Placement, Scandinavia Day, resembles an EE in organisation. The number of visitors is approximately 2400. In 2011, 49 exhibitors participated, representing 32 municipalities, 13 of which were Swedish. Since Placement is specialised in marketing Nordic municipalities, more specific Nordic–Dutch comparisons are offered than at EE. Moreover, from discussions and observations, it appears that those municipalities that have been involved over a longer period have developed a more to-the-point approach.
In addition, since all municipalities at Scandinavia Day conduct their campaigns through Placement, the overall organisation is more uniform. This organisation results in the use of one common website (Placement, 2011a) and one common brochure (Placement, 2011b) for all projects. This uniform approach is also visible during the information meetings and a seminar on entrepreneurship. The purpose of these meetings is for Placement to inform visitors about the projects and the municipalities’ characteristics considering employment, housing and practical issues. Follow-up contacts between prospective migrants and municipalities are also offered.
Thus, Swedish rural municipalities engaged in marketing efforts in the Netherlands broadly utilise two strategies: migration information meetings and the Internet. The number of municipalities engaging in this type of place marketing has increased over the past years. Recent trends are regional cooperation rather than efforts by individual municipalities. However, as discussed below, financial resources for these marketing efforts are unequally distributed among Sweden’s rural municipalities.
Objectives and target groups of the campaigns
This sub-section addresses the third research question: what are the objectives and target groups of the rural place-marketing campaigns? It initially considers the results of the survey, before it turns to interviews with stakeholders.
The respondents to the survey are mainly occupied with general (tourism) information services. They are managers of general marketing campaigns or work with specific services for new residents. The majority of the exhibitors include one or more Dutch migrants in their team, as ambassadors for their Swedish municipality and examples of successful migration. The findings of the survey indicate the relative novelty of this kind of marketing campaign: no organisation has participated prior to 2005, whereas 32 municipalities (including Region Dalarna) were first-time exhibitors in 2008.
In 2008 most respondents (representing 85% of the municipalities) indicated that the main target group for their campaigns consists of Dutch prospective migrants. Other targeted migrants were German, Belgian and Polish, as well as migrants from the Nordic countries. The response by Region Dalarna indicates a rather pronounced marketing strategy stating that although Dutch migrants are the main target group in 2008, their campaign may develop into other countries, including Germany and Great Britain, in subsequent years.
The main purposes are to attract new residents, enterprises and local investments. These results are similar to the findings by Connell and McManus (2011), Heldt Cassel (2008) and Niedomysl (2004, 2007). Moreover, some respondents specify that they aim to increase variety among businesses, others emphasise attracting highly skilled migrants to increase ethnic and economic diversity, whereas others aim to maintain a reasonable level of local services. Region Dalarna indicates particular demographic objectives: a relatively early generation shift makes highly skilled employees and entrepreneurs attractive for replacing the recently retired baby-boomers of the 1940s.
Finally, answers to the question ‘What makes Dutch migrants an interesting target group?’ reveal some of the exhibitors’ assumptions. Referring to high population density and congestion, one respondent states that ‘the situation in the Netherlands makes Sweden attractive’. Many respondents refer to similar notions, stating that the Dutch in general demonstrate a willingness to move abroad. The Dutch target group is described using adjectives such as ‘well-informed’, ‘friendly’, ‘adaptable’, ‘well prepared’, ‘nature-loving’ and ‘willing to settle in sparsely populated areas’. Moreover, since the respondents presume that prospective Dutch migrants are well educated, highly skilled, hard working, enterprising and possessing adequate social and language skills, few challenging circumstances considering social and economic integration are expected.
Some of these assumptions are based on prior experiences of best practice. The assumptions may also be inspired by misleading statistics on the volume of Dutch emigrants in general and those opting for Sweden in particular, as presented in the media and forwarded by the organising committee of EE. Hence, these assumptions appear to be inspired by hearsay more than thorough research.
Interviews with stakeholders advance our understanding of the context for initiating these campaigns. Mrs Erlingmark, project manager at the project ‘move to Dalarna’, summarises the initial phases of their international rural place-marketing campaign: We used to focus on Sweden for our marketing campaigns. In 2008, those campaigns evolved into a new project, with an international perspective. Colleagues at the Swedish Public Employment Service elsewhere in Sweden had informed us that Region Dalarna was in great demand during earlier editions of the expo [EE] in the Netherlands, even though we were not represented there at the time. We decided to participate in 2008 and the response was so great that we continued on that track.
In Hällefors, efforts initially developed in a rather similar fashion, but with a different outcome. In 2003, the municipal executive board of Hällefors formulated three policy profiles in an attempt to turn the negative population and economic trends: culinary arts, technology and design (Braunerhielm, 2006: 116–117). This resulted in, among other things, a joint Holland-project with neighbouring municipalities. Mr Björklund, development officer in Hällefors, explains: A Dutchman in our municipality spoke of a Dutch owned migration consultancy agency in Norway. We invited the agency’s manager and signed a contract with him in 2004. The aim was to attract 10 Dutch families to Hällefors in 2005. This target was met and we extended the contract with one year, joined by Ljusnarsberg, Nora and Lindesberg. Despite good results our finances did not allow prolonging the project, but we were the first in Sweden to work with Placement.
As stated above, Region Dalarna and Hällefors mediate generic natural amenities through their campaigns. As Björklund (Interview, 2008) states, ‘In Hällefors, population density is about 8 persons/km2, compared to an average of 400 in the Netherlands. There are 400 lakes in our municipality so everyone can go for a swim in their own lake.’ Björklund also mentions the Swedish school system and schools with few pupils as attractive for Dutch families with young children.
Amenities related to Bergslagen’s cultural heritage are less frequently utilised. Depending on the aspirations of prospective migrants and whether it may facilitate their chances of starting or acquiring an enterprise, Andersson (Interview, 2008) mentions the area’s cultural heritage at the Scandinavia Day. Being able to circumvent problematic circumstances in Bergslagen (e.g. rundown former schools or factories, limited commercial services and public transport facilities) depends partly on the target group.
In this context, hiding these negative sides is easier through international than domestic campaigns. Van Vliet (Interview, 2008) simply states ‘Hällefors has attempted to attract people from Sweden, but in general Swedes do not aspire living in the countryside’. Erlingmark agrees: Lately, a Dutch family found a job and an apartment in Dalarna, at the same day as they sold their Dutch house! Colleagues trying to attract migrants from Stockholm just sigh at this. They maintained a register of prospective migrants in Sweden for three years with minor results. Compared to the domestic target groups, Dutch migrants seem fearless!
This suggests that the lure of the Swedish countryside is more easily transmitted to foreign, possibly less well-informed, target groups.
Measures of effectiveness
This sub-section addresses the question, ‘To what extent can the effectiveness of the international rural place-marketing campaigns be measured?’. Departing from the measures by Connell and McManus (2011: 94), I argue that more qualitative data are needed in order to determine whether migrants have moved as a direct result of international rural place-marketing campaigns. Such qualitative data can best be gathered through in-depth interviews with migrants after their migration, as the remainder of this section demonstrates that combining stakeholders’ claims on success with statistical indications of increased in-migration does not suffice for measuring the campaigns’ effectiveness.
The measures discussed by Connell and McManus (2011: 85–96) in the conceptual framework above can be assessed here, except measures 2 and 3 as they are outside the scope of this study. Although developments in the numbers of visitors to the meetings may indicate increasing or decreasing popularity of such events, it is hard to relate it to the effectiveness of each individual stakeholder (measure 1). People have been invited to visit the municipality after the expo, particularly by Placement but also by Region Dalarna (measure 4). Trends in Dutch population numbers in the studied municipalities are presented in Figure 4, but whether or not this is a result of the expo is best investigated through interviews with the migrated families (measure 5). The number of small enterprises that move to a particular municipality as a result of the expo may be related to the migrant families that start or acquire an enterprise in the destination area (measure 6). Finally, Hällefors has failed to justify funding for attending after 2007, whereas Region Dalarna has expanded its efforts (measure 7).
Relative development of Dutch population in the research area’s large, medium and small municipalities, 1990–2008. (Index: 1990 = 100).
In addition to the fifth measure above, Figure 4 illustrates that the number of Dutch residents increases most in small municipalities and least in large municipalities in the research area. The small municipality of Hällefors houses most Dutch (41), followed by Ludvika (33), whereas fewer Dutch settled in the largest municipalities (27 in Falun and 15 in Borlänge). As individuals under the age of 16 are not included in data for Figure 4, the actual Dutch population size is larger (BeDa, 2010). Still, the 90% increase in numbers of Dutch residents (1990–2008) illustrates the relative novelty and the rural character of this phenomenon (Eimermann et al., 2012).
This relatively large number of Dutch migrants in Hällefors may be caused by Hällefors being the first municipality in Sweden to have engaged in marketing campaigns towards the Netherlands. During its first year of cooperation with Placement, Björklund is astonished about the large numbers of people visiting the migration information meetings in the Netherlands: ‘To be honest, we did not really have an idea of the impacts our cooperation with Placement would have. Within 1 hour at the meeting, all our 150 brochures were distributed! So many people were interested in our municipality’ (Interview Björklund, 2008). According to Van Vliet (Interview, 2008), one of the most important reasons for gaining the attention of prospective movers and actual in-migrants is mediating commitment during the information meetings and hospitality during subsequent personal encounters. Mr Andersson, development officer in Ljusnarsberg, agrees: ‘It’s all about trust and building up a relationship with the prospective migrants’ (Interview Andersson, 2008).
However, according to the interviewed Dutch migrants in Hällefors, migration information meetings are of minor importance. Several families indicate that they may have visited one or two such events, but that other ways of gathering information such as books by earlier migrants, contacts with fellow prospective migrants and visits to Sweden and other countries have played a more decisive role (Interviews De Geer, Louwerens and Ouwehand, 2011). In other words, the interview study shows that simply combining stakeholders’ claims (Interview Björklund, 2008: Interview Erlingmark and Blomqvist, 2008) with statistical indications that the number of Dutch people in the municipalities has increased (Figure 4) is not sufficient for measuring the campaigns’ effectiveness. Thus, the function of the interviews in this study is to problematise the link between marketing efforts and migration figures.
Concluding discussion – international rural place marketing in shrinking Europe
This article has examined international rural place-marketing efforts by Swedish municipalities towards affluent western European migrants, exemplified by campaigns in the Netherlands. This concluding section briefly discusses the four questions on which this study is based, before considering implications for rural and regional policy making in a shrinking Europe.
The first question is, ‘What are the locations and socio-demographic conditions of Swedish places engaging in international rural place marketing?’. As we see in the observed municipalities and their locations (Figure 1), an analysis of their socio-demographic conditions suggests that municipalities engaging in international rural place-marketing efforts are coping with less favourable or unfavourable conditions, such as a peripheral location, population decline and economic stagnation (Swedish National Rural Development Agency, 2008). Over time, however, trends are observed where regional cooperation (e.g. Region Dalarna) is preferred over campaigning as a separate municipality (e.g. Hällefors). Larger and rather urban areas (e.g. Malmö) are increasingly involved in such regional cooperation.
The second question is, ‘What communication strategies are most commonly used for the promotion of Swedish countryside in order to attract new residents abroad?’. Observation and interviews with stakeholders indicate that Swedish municipalities’ strategies for rural place marketing to attract new residents from abroad focus on the Internet and migration information meetings. Content analysis of the promotional material offered at stands, presentations and slide shows, indicates that natural amenities such as forests and lakes are most commonly mediated. The strategies of those municipalities that can afford to participate in a number of consecutive meetings evolve from this rather ‘touristic focus on the aesthetic’ to a more ‘prosaic yet vital focus on employment, housing and other services’, as also noted by Connell and McManus (2011: 83).
The third research question considers the objectives and target groups of the campaigns. In short, Region Dalarna is looking for new entrepreneurs and employees to maintain the region’s economic prospects. The region focuses on generic representations of nature and landscape in its version of the rural idyll, welcoming basically anyone from Europe. On the other hand, the objectives of Hällefors are more specifically to attract in-migration, ideally families with young children and adults willing to start or acquire a small enterprise. In Hällefors and similar municipalities (Heldt Cassel, 2008), prospects for the continued existence of schools, daycare centres, general practitioner posts and other services can improve when attracting the ‘right type’ of incomers.
This selectivity is a major point of critique. Municipality officials appear to presume that attracting Dutch and other western European affluent migrants facilitates integration owing to language and cultural similarities. This can be contrasted with assumptions on incomers from non-EU countries; that they may become welfare dependent or for whom ‘transaction costs’ may be considered higher by employers (Lang, 1986; Rooth and Saarela, 2007). These assumptions carry risks of overestimating the potential of the campaigns, competences and capacities of intra-European migrants. Consequently, as the campaigns studied in this article are based on assumptions rather than research, stakeholders would benefit from increasing their knowledge of target groups.
The fourth question is, ‘To what extent can the effectiveness of such campaigns be measured?’. This study has added a more in-depth approach to the suggestions by Connell and McManus (2011: 85–96) discussed above: an interview study with migrants after their move to Hällefors, Sweden. Findings suggest that information meetings and the Internet are subordinate to the myriad possibilities for migrants to gather information about potential destination areas. Not only may Dutch and other prospective migrants have insufficient information considering socio-economic conditions on the Swedish countryside, but the Swedish stakeholders’ level of knowledge of Dutch potential migrants may be insufficient as well. In this respect, cooperation with Placement offers advantages as this agency has developed more detailed expertise during its longer history of campaigning and has increased lucidity through coordinating multiple campaigns.
Overall, an increasing number of rural municipalities in Sweden and beyond engage in marketing efforts in order to attract new residents from abroad. However, a number of implications for rural and regional policy making in a shrinking Europe should be considered. First, although the impacts of international rural place-marketing campaigns in order to attract new residents are increasingly noticed, these efforts dispose of limited resources (Niedomysl, 2004). Second, funding from EU’s regional development funds appears unequally distributed among deprived municipalities. This offers better opportunities to some regions (e.g. Region Dalarna) while disadvantaging others (e.g. Hällefors). As such, this redistribution of Europe’s population may counteract social and economic effects of shrinking Europe (Hospers, 2011) merely in some, not all, rural destination areas. Third, similar to Niedomysl (2007: 708), the study at hand suggests no ‘general evidence of success from the marketing campaigns’.
Therefore, regional policy makers may consider shifting their focus from migration information meetings and the Internet to actively receiving potential migrants who are in the final stage of their decision process. This includes assisting migrants when establishing social and business contacts with local inhabitants and entrepreneurs in the area. Indications that some stakeholders initiated this shift are a Swedish language course for Dutch native speakers in Dalarna and a three-day seminar on entrepreneurship in southern Sweden, organised by Placement. Thus, although communication strategies would continue, including using the Internet and migration information meetings, at a subsequent stage regional policy makers would shift focus from attracting potential migrants to accompanying those who decided to move.
This stage in rural place-marketing efforts can be seen on a scale between maintaining the existing population on the one side, termed ‘selling itself to insiders’ by Heldt Cassel (2008) or ‘warm marketing’ by Hospers (2010), and ‘cold marketing’ on the other side – attracting newcomers (Hospers, 2010). This consideration is based both on the study at hand and on a forthcoming analysis of ambivalent attitudes towards return among Dutch lifestyle migrants in Hällefors, thus linking issues of international rural place marketing to international counterurbanisation and lifestyle migration in Europe.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Mats Lundmark, Dieter Müller and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Funding
The research was financially supported by grants from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG).