Northern InSight researchers contributed actively June 11-12 in a European conference on experience economy.

The conference was organized by RUC (Roskilde University) and Jon Sundbo in the frontline. Researchers working within different disciplines and studying different sectors were gathered, all with the common interest in experience economy. Tourism were a regular sector focused by the researchers. Among the many issues discussed is the need of improved understanding, typologies and measuring of innovation. Another is the need of improved typologies and tools for measuring what kind of economy a firm is within primarily. Is it service logic, experience logic, or other kinds of business logics? It is not enough just to assume that e.g. tourism firms, or even a subsector like a hotel, is within an experience economy, since it may not, or only secondarily.

Four Northern InSight researchers participated. Lena Mossberg was one of four invited keynote speakers, she talked about «Consumer immersion in a tourism context: pre-requisites and facilitators». In addition she presented one paper written together with Ann Heidi Hansen, on «Consumer immersion in a tourism experience context». Lena also presented a paper together with Dorthe Eide on «Towards a conceptual framework of innovation types in the experience economy: Experience design through focus on customer interactions». All these three contributions draw on empirical case studies from the north, not least Svalbard.

In addition, Dorthe Eide and Lars Fuglsang presented a paper on «Open and domestic types of networking in the experience economy: Between design and emerging?», which is an empirical paper studying innovation through networking. Two cases are compared, i.e. the open network Arena Innovative Experiences (Norwegian case) and the domestic network Small Tourism (Danish case).