Norway and Denmark spend at least three times as much money as Sweden on marketing themselves to tourists, new figures show.
Now the tourism industry is warning that skimping can have negative consequences for employment and growth.
But for this to happen, tourists must find their way here, and then more resources are needed to market Sweden abroad, Visita believes.
According to figures compiled by Visita, Norway invested a total of around 192 million – or 35 kronor per inhabitant – in its state budget for international marketing. In Denmark, the same figure landed at 177 million kronor – 30 kronor per inhabitant.
Sweden spent 120 million kronor – 11 kronor per inhabitant.
”"It can be stated that Sweden is the worst in the class of these three. Foreign tourists who want to go to a Nordic country may choose not to visit Sweden because we are too bad at marketing ourselves, which will delay the recovery and our opportunity to create new jobs in the tourism industry. The competition for tourists is fierce," says Anna Wallén, head of business policy at Visita.
The pandemic years were bleak times for tourism in Sweden. Between 2019 and 2020, the total number of guest nights during the summer fell from 16 million to 9 million. Last year saw an upturn, although not to the same levels as before the Covid outbreak.
”"The tourism industry has been through a tough time during the pandemic, we were on the front lines and lost around 50,000 employees who we need to get back," says Anna Wallén.
TT: Can't you argue that it is up to individual cities, regions and municipalities to allocate the money they believe is needed for marketing?
”"We absolutely think that regions and municipalities can be significantly better, and we are pushing for them to market themselves more. But they spend relatively little money on marketing their destinations and then they can't compete at all. It is (the tourism organization) Visit Sweden that has the mission to market all of Sweden."”
