The rules have now been eased for fully vaccinated Norwegians who want to travel to Sweden. And customers immediately started coming back to Swedish shopping centers near the border.

Many more Norwegian customers came to the Nordby shopping center outside Strömstad yesterday than last Friday, when the requirement for a negative Covid test even for fully vaccinated people still applied.

”"Roughly speaking, you can say that yesterday, compared to last Friday, there were six to seven times as many visitors," says Ulf Palm, CEO of shopping center owner Orvelin, to TT.

But even though visitor numbers are now trending upwards, it is still far from what it was like before the pandemic.

”"Compared to the corresponding day before the pandemic, we had about half as many visitors," says Ulf Palm. 

During the pandemic, Nordby has been at around five percent of its previous number of visitors and is now up somewhere around 40-45 percent. But even though there is still a long way to go to the pre-pandemic glory days, yesterday's visitor numbers were of course a welcome improvement.

”"Of course it's better and in some ways nice to see people during the day. But there's a long way to go before things get back to normal," says Ulf Palm.

On Friday, NRK visited Godishuset in Svinesund, where for the first time in several weeks there was a steady stream of customers entering the store.

”"There are unusually many people here this early. It feels fantastic, almost a little surreal," store manager Mathias Knutsson told the Norwegian public service broadcaster. 

Norwegian Hanna Rise, who before the pandemic used to travel across the border to shop about twice a month, was happy to be able to shop cheaper on the Swedish side again.

”"It's great to be back. The prices are much better here than in Norway," she told NRK.

According to the trade organization Swedish Commerce, Norwegian visitors spent SEK 27.9 billion in Swedish retail in 2019 and contributed to creating 7,200 jobs in Sweden.

Source: TT