Literary Tourism and the Branding of Places: An Expanding Market in Sweden

Summary, in English

I will present a study, concerning crime writer Henning Mankell, and his stories about chief inspector Kurt Wallander at the Ystad police department in southern Sweden. In a cooperation between the local Tourist Office and the film production company producing films based on the Mankell/Wallander stories, a concept has been developed where tourists are invited to follow a ”murder walk” in Ystad. During the walk they can experience the Wallander adventures, and there are also are possibilities to identify with the author – who lives in the neighborhood – and follow the creative process of the stories.

My study is ethnographic, dealing with tourism of experience, where the landscape is consumed by the tourist, often in a playful form, bringing out the corporeal qualities of the place. In this perspective emotion and emotionality are resources to be affirmed in a context of place marketing and a renegotiation of regional identity.