The rhythms of canal tourism: Synchronizing the host-visitor interface

Abstract This article examines how rhythmanalysis can expand understanding of the spatiotemporal features of the host-visitor interface, examining the Telemark Canal region in Norway and its rural development and heritagization processes. Part of the heritagization of the Telemark Canal is to utilize the potential of the canal as a tourist attraction in order to generate economic, social and cultural value in the broadest sense within nearby local communities. By investigating the rhythms and polyrhythms of hosts and visitors of the canal, and revealing a significant arrhythmia, we demonstrate that there is an unfulfilled potential in how travellers along the Telemark Canal contribute socially, culturally and economically to local development. The key to local economic as well as social and cultural development from tourism is in enhancing the connections between visitors and the canal's host communities. We argue that intervening through rhythms at the interface between hosts and visitors might be the key to utilizing more of the potential of value creation from canal tourism.