Integration of “Ideal Migrants”: Dutch lifestyle expat-preneurs in Swedish campgrounds

Abstract

This article contributes to understanding migration and integration experiences of privileged intra-EU migrant entrepreneurs termed “lifestyle expat-preneurs” by discussing the role of rural entrepreneurship in the processes of integration into sparsely populated rural areas, as exemplified by the Dutch tourism entrepreneurs in northern Sweden. Specifically, this article focuses on campground entrepreneurship, a sub-segment of rural tourism lacking much academic research. Findings demonstrate the experiences of intra-EU lifestyle expat-preneurs are absent from currently dominating theoretical, as well as political, discourses on migration and integration. The article concludes arguing campground entrepreneurship is a powerful catalyst of lifestyle migration, but the very nature of this business is an inhibiting, rather than supporting factor, for rural community integration.