Impact of Climate Change on Labour Productivity in the Norwegian Travel and Tourism Industry

Climate change, renewable energy development, migration to urban areas and ageing of the population lead to a demand for workers in rural Norway. One way to meet this demand is by moving labour from industries with low productivity to industries with a stronger demand for labour. We argue that one of these industries could indeed be the travel and tourism industry. The value creation in the Norwegian travel and tourism industry has increased significantly over the last two decades. Despite this growth, we demonstrate that profitability and the value creation per working hour are considerably lower in the tourism industry compared to most other mainland industries. The aim of this chapter is to explore the Norwegian travel and tourism industries’ low productivity branches as well as to discuss a possible long-term transition of labour and capital to industries designated to combat climate change. Draining such labour force from the travel and tourism industry could be partly counteracted by an increase in labour immigration from outside of the EEA area.