10 Natural tips about selling

Todays tough business climate makes it even more important to be able to sell. Most industrys have seen an increase in competition, where the globalization has affected companies of all sizes and tourism is no exception. Thousands of articles has been written about how to “behave” for being successful in selling. Not this one.

From my [...]

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

Tourism marketing is a tricky thing. At least in Sweden. Our tourism industry is based on about 7000 small tourism enterprises, still waiting to be discovered by the masses… Most of them are not even small, but micro-companies with one or a just few employees. There are of course a number of larger tourismrelated corporations, [...]

It´s like chinese to me

There are about 1,3 billion Chinese people in China, approximately a quarter of the world’s total population. Chinese economy is doing quite well while Europe’s and the United States economy is struggling to get back on their feet.
China has recently eased on travel regulations and visa application procedures for their citizens, which have resulted in [...]

听起来像中文

中国有大约1.3亿人口, 占世界总人口的四分之一。众所周知，近年来中国的经济发展迅速，而与此同时欧洲和美国的经济却停滞不前。
中国最近放宽了对其本国公民的旅游限制法规，放松了签证申请程序，这使得中国成为光顾瑞典最多的亚洲国家。
可是，瑞典提供旅游与旅行资讯（www.visitsweden.com）的官方网站几个星期前在接受电视新闻采访时却表示：“中国旅客不是我们争取的优先市场“。由于预期的欧洲经济衰退，瑞典旅游营销的重点现在被放在了吸引来自其他欧洲国家的周末或短期（4至5天）旅行。瑞典旅游官方网站甚至没有中文网页。
我们对中国旅客重要性的无知和忽略不禁使我想起了一句瑞典俗语。当不明白某件事情或者不清楚它的意义时，瑞典人会说，“det är som Kinesiska” , 翻译过来是, “听起来像中文”。这与在讲英文国家里流行的“听起来像希腊语”异曲同工。
尽管中国和瑞典文化存在明显差异，我们还是有很多很重要的相似之处的。比如说相对于个人需要，两国文化都更强调社会共同利益，建立社会共识， 都对本国的文化历史重视并感到自豪。关于这方面，请阅读我的其它的有关瑞典商业文化的文章。
我强烈认为，瑞典可以为中国游客提供比快速访问斯德哥尔摩及其列岛更多和更好的选择。这虽然本身也是一个不错的旅游方式，但远不是瑞典可以提供的全部。我相信如果得到适当和有效的开发和推广（最好采用中文），瑞典的异常纯净的湖泊和河流，广阔的森林和北极地区，丰富的野生动物，特色的食物和当地文化， 都会吸引我们来自中国的朋友，为他们提供独特的旅游经验和享受。
既然如此，为什么中国旅客不应该是我们的优先市场呢？还是那句话，听起来像中文！
 
/ Curt Landin

Do´s and Don´ts in Swedish tour planning

Cooperating with Swedish tourism entrepreneurs or suppliers might be a bit tricky, at least when it comes to smaller companies. Many of them are run on a family- or seasonal basis and not so used to be part of a program. Still they delivers extraordinary experiences and professional services to their guests.
DO
Be there on time. Show [...]

Arm-in-arm: The Swedish way in business

We are are just about nine million Swedes , but that hasn´t stopped us from gaining a worldwide reputation as professional in business. IKEA, Volvo and ASEA (now ABB) are some of the international well-known top brands with their roots in Sweden. No doubt about the efficiency in our way of doing business. However, we have [...]

Red days – Sweden on holiday

There are a number of red days – public holidays – most of them spread out from february to june, only to be followed by the 4-5 weeks summertime industrisemester (the industrial holiday). Even if it has become somewhat stretched out and most companies and institution nowadays are open, it´s almost impossible to get in [...]

Telefon tider – a deeply rooted tradition

Designated telephone times, a deeply rooted tradition in Sweden. When you´re trying to access government offices, health care or public services you´ll find that you can only call many of them during certain times of the day. Or you´re re-directed to a callcenter that nowadays might very well be located in Estonia or India.

Luckily, [...]

A word on punctuality

Yep. In Sweden it´s on time. Or not. Punctuality is really important to Swedes. On the other hand, re-scheduling an appointment is no big deal. Just call them and say you´ll be late. Most of us will understand. Then be there. You get one chance, re-scheduling twice is a big no-no. If it happens, you [...]

Fika – more than a coffee break

Sooner or later you´ll run into it, no matter for what reason you happen to be in Sweden. Our fika-paus (“to take a coffee break”) is almost sacred. It´s considered more or less a human right, written into the contracts, mostly taken place at midmorning around 9 o´clock and sometime in the afternoon. So be [...]