Scandinavian cities are putting their new-found cultural status to work in the tourism stakes
FOLLOWING Stockholm’s successful year as European Cultural Capital in 1998, Bergen, in Norway, and Finnish capital Helsinki are preparing their promotional campaigns as two of the nine cultural cities chosen for 2000.
“We have proposed an advertising plan, but it depends on the financial support we get,” said Finnish Tourist Board UK director Ulla Pakarinen.
Organisers of Helsinki 2000, set up to co-ordinate and market the cultural city, are due to release some details of the programme this week. The annual 17-day Helsinki Festival, from August 20-September 5, will be used as a forerunner to a 2000 calendar of events.
The festival, of music, dance and theatre performances, is one of several annual shows in the country through the summer.
While Bergen’s cultural tag is important to Norway, the tourist board’s attention is focused more on the opportunities presented by Scandinavian Seaways’ new route from Newcastle to Kristiansand, which started on February 5. This takes visitors into southern Norway, which has its share of fjords and mountains, and easy access to Oslo and Stavanger.
“We had a 16% increase in bednights from the UK last year, to 550,000, and I hope 1999 will show continuous growth,” said Norwegian Tourist Board UK director Per Holte.
“Being named as a cultural city should increase numbers for Bergen, but the impact will not be as great as if it were the only city chosen.”
This was the position Stockholm enjoyed last year, which the Stockholm Information Service and Swedish Travel and Tourist Council capitalised on. The council’s UK travel trade manager Jane Wilde said the press coverage generated, estimated to be worth ú2m if it had been bought as advertising, has put the city on the map for summer. Surrounding towns also benefitted as city hotels filled up.
“We are now turning attention to promoting Stockholm in the off-season and also Gothenburg and southern Sweden,” she added. A press advertising and direct-mail campaign starts at the end of this month.
Copenhagen saw a less spectacular leap in business when it was named cultural capital in 1996, but growth from the UK has been steady.
Arrivals between January and November last year were up 3.5% on the same period in 1997, to 232,000 bednights – and should get a boost from the ú1m joint three-year project launched by the tourist board, SAS and the Wonderful Copenhagen bureau last October.
“Numbers have grown to a point where lack of accommodation was an issue in 1998, but First Hotels is opening a 400-room city hotel in the middle of the year, which will help,” said Danish Tourist Board UK director Soren Damstrup.
The new road and rail bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo, due to open in June 2000, will also ease the shortage by bringing hotels in Sweden within 30mins of the Danish capital. This benefit is expected to be felt mainly in the conference market. For tourists, Damstrup said it will create a different product to bolt on to a city stay. “Visitors can have a city break and then go trekking in unspoilt Sweden,” he added.