Sweden’s Image Abroad
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Sweden as a tourist destination? Visit Sweden, a company jointly owned by the government and the tourist industry, conducted a survey and got a variety of responses from French, German, British, and Dutch participants.
To some degree all of these nationalities identified Sweden with beautiful nature, cold weather, and snow. There was some variation between nationalities regarding other issues, however. The Dutch associate Sweden with peace and freedom, while Germans are interested in the Royal Houses and moose’s. The British think of Sweden as a very clean country, and Frenchmen associate the country with beautiful women.
Visit Sweden is working to profile the country in areas other than the traditional. Culture, trends, design and gastronomy shall be the new “buzz” words.
My own reflections are that the cold weather image is because of all the marketing efforts for the Swedish Lapland, Ice hotel and snow. Bad or good but the rest of the country is not so cold anymore. Here in Skåne you play e.g golf all year round. True is it is a big country with a great variation.
Would be nice if you send your comments on this!