A blog about Swedish tourism from a tourism development professional´s personal view, edited by Curt Landin. I´m a management consultant, age 48, with a broad experience from the Swedish travel industry, including Wasaresor (travel agency), Fritidsresor (charter), American Express (business travel) & Äventyrsresor (adventure travel) as well as manager for a couple of swedish hotels.
Since 2001 I´m running Natural AB (the website is presently under re-construction and mostly in Swedish, will be translated soon) together with Jan Wigsten. My educational background is market economist DIHM, with a specialization in international marketing. Previous positions outside the travel industry includes being managing director for Sweden´s biggest privately owned orthopaedic rehabilitation center and marketing manager for the Swedish Orienteering Federation. As a consultant I´m focusing on sales, marketing & tourism development. I´m also a lousy guitarplayer (check out my troubadour site curre.nu ) and a proud father of two lovely teenagers.
The Swedish tourism industry is highly fragmented, mostly consisting of small entrepreneurial-style businesses you don´t find in the national tourism-promoting websites, directories or trade fairs. There are only a few incoming agencies and destination management companies – who naturally focuses on international wellknown attractions like, for example, Stockholm and its archipelago, Gotland Island & the Ice Hotel up north. However, Sweden´s most stunning secrets are still to be discovered by other than the locals. This personal blog is an attempt to provide tour operators with useful, hands-on information about tourism in Sweden as a complement to general official guides and commercial webdirectories. You´ll find a choice of inspirational & unusual attractions,programmes and routes, comments on issues & trends, personal recommendations and contacts etc.
One of the reasons I run this blog is to get in touch with colleagues around the world, why comments & knowledge exhange are much appreciated. I hope you will find it interesting.
Nice blog. I work for Booking.com in the Nordics, we are fairly new here but the office and business is rapidly growing. Always happy to chat with fellow travel professionals in the Nordics. My blog is a personal one and not a business one, I try never to mix the two though my passion for the Nordics often shines through.
Super blog! I write the Transparent Swedish for Transparent Language and my readers have been bugging me for more travel content. So it looks like you just got yourself a new regular visitor.
Hej
Vill tipsa dig om denna färska undersökning om resandet under lågkonjukturen från oss.
Hej David,
Tack för kommentaren. Jag hittade undersökningen på sinovum.se Antar att den inte utgår från ett obundet slumpmässigt urval eftersom respondenterna var frivilliga på vissa utvalda siter, men resultatet speglar i vart fall den känsla jag själv har. Frågan om man åker långt bort eller närmare kanske inte skjuter prick på lågkonjunkturens påverkan eftersom man kan åka långt bort och när man kommer fram är det billigt att leva samtidigt som det är närmare till Paris men där kostar det en del att vara.
Oavsett vilket, är det intressant att följa utvecklingen om hur internet förändrar turisters sätt att förbereda sig inför och köpa resor.
Mvh
Curt Landin
Hej!
Jag skriver en uppsats om hur internationella företag bidrar till hållbarhet i sina destinationer. Jag vill intervjua tour operatörer främst i Tyskland, Norge, Danmark och UK, som har Sverige som destination.
Jag undrar om du har något bra tips på hur man kan få tag på sådanna företag! Tack!!
Hej Louise,
Intressant frågeställning. Du hittar många här:
http://www.nutek.se/content/1/c4/27/00/info_060-2006.pdf
Outdoor & Ecotourism – Sverigeturismens konkurrenskraft ur ett Europaperspektiv.
Lycka till!
Hi
Very interesting blog ! I actually run a travel company in Perú and would like to know if there is interest in Sweden for visiting this part of the world. I have had some clients from Sweden a couple of years ago and i have to say i find them very nice. Maybe i could get in contact with some small agencies that wish to work with us!
best regards from Perú
Hi
Very interesting blog ! I actually run a travel company in Perú and would like to know if there is interest in Sweden for visiting this part of the world. I have had some clients from your country a couple of years ago and i have to say i find them very nice. Maybe i could get in contact with some small agencies that wish to work with us!
best regards from Perú
By the way , if someone is interested in a cooperation for selling Peru my e mail is : ttt@tttperu.net
Like your blog – very interesting and instructive. My agency produces tourism web sites for some large Swedish local authorities and cities, as well as place branding and destination marketing strategies and concepts. You appear to think that these local authorities/cities don’t do it very well. How would you do it??
Hi David,
Thanks for asking! There are some excellent sites, no doubt about that, but most of them are not – for structural reasons, I believe. We have a number of successful tourism companies in Sweden (Skistar, Ice Hotel etc) who can control the entire chain of events, but to be a great tourism organisation (authorities, cities, regions) requires a complete different approach, as I see it.
I would not try to apply traditional marketing management & branding strategies (Kotler/Porter etc) with “one common vision/image/goals”. Not effective in tourism, mainly because the marketing organizations have no or little influence over the entities they are marketing.
I would go bottoms-up; the image(s), brands and strategies then comes as a result of what the service providers wants. Consequently, a “destination” isn´t the same as a city or a county and the solution is not necessarily another website or brochure.
But once we´ve done our homework and the basics are there (see postings under Destination Dev.) I´m sure the tourism websites will be great.