Elina Hutton
Research interests
My research explores how social rules, norms and practices in tourism shape the ways people understand, experience and relate to nature. I am particularly interested in how science-tourism cooperation and regenerative tourism approaches can support stronger and more caring nature relationships, while contributing positively to local environments and communities.
I am also interested in visitor management and monitoring, especially in the use of novel data sources, such as Strava Metro, mobile network data and satellite Earth observation (satEO) data to better understand visitor patterns and preferences in outdoor recreation areas. These data can also help monitor the environmental impacts of nature-based tourism and support more informed, adaptive visitor management.
My current research includes a small pilot project with Rissa Citizen Science, funded by Tromsø Municipality. During the summer of 2026, we worked together with volunteer citizen scientists to map plant species and collect observations and survey data on visitor preferences in the Fløya area. The project also included ground-truthing activities to support the analysis of satellite Earth observation (satEO) data. This work, which has received funding from the European Space Agency (ESA), explores how satellite data can be used to monitor environmental conditions and tourism-related impacts in nature recreation areas.
Teaching
BED-1511 Innføring i reiseliv som næring
TVR-3000 Activating Transformations for Sustainability