The sustainable cabin village 'Nerskogen' will consist of small private cabins and areas for shared facilities, such as a sauna, a common parking lot, a bicycle garage and repair shop and guest rooms. Sharing these facilities saves money for individuals. It also offers families that do not have the resources to invest in facilities like a sauna or guest rooms the luxury of more comfort and the opportunity to bring guests to share the nature experience with friends. An introduction to 'sharing economy' can be found on the 'About' page. Critical voices emphasise that sharing economy might also increase greenhouse gas emissions. Car sharing offers like DriveNow might increase the emissions of individuals who would have used public transport otherwise. Though variations in the use of car sharing are so diverse that climate impacts can not be inferred (Martin and Shaheen 2010). Sharing economy expands the market volume and therefore creates an impact which should not be disregarded (Hamari et al. 2016).
As mentioned above, owners of a cabin in the sustainable cabin village profit from a lot of facilities that might be too cost-intense to install only for themselves. Therefore, a high living-standard comes with a lower price. The private cabin does not have to be very big, which saves building costs and lowers the price of the initial investment. Maintenance cost is also reasonable as a small cabin uses less electricity, firewood and water than a bigger one.
Cabins in the area of Oppdal are only used 57 days of the year (Nasjonalparken næringshage AS 2015). The sustainable cabin village project aims to tackle the low usage with a "rental model". Owners of cabins are supposed to put their cabin on the rental market when they are not using it, they have yet not decided how this will be organised in the Nerskogen project. This provides an income possibility for the owners, even lowering the maintenance cost of the cabin. The rental can be done through convential platforms like AirBnb, but also get involved with alternative platforms like Ecobnb (see https://ecobnb.com/).
The aim of increasing the usage of the cabin is beneficial in terms of economic stability for the local economy too. Local grocery stores or cafés would be favoured by more stable demands and could therefore expand and invest in a wider range of offers, making the area more attractive.
The target group for such a project are young families from neighbouring bigger towns with a focus on sustainability and nature preservation. They have an increased awareness for minimalizing their environmental footprint and for sharing economy and pay less attention to material goods. We assume that even though they choose these lower-priced cabins, they are financially well situated and therefore have the resources to use offers in the surroundings.
The more stable demand following the "rental model" as well as the active target group could open opportunities for tourism operators to install new offers. High-wire gardens and zip-lining, like the ones we visited, as well as other facilities promoting the experience of nature (nature discovery trails, horseback riding etc.) might be of interest for the target group.
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