Tourism on the right track
2022 was the first year in which a hard hit tourism industry slowly but surely built itself up again after the pandemic.
International tourism picked up again in 2022 after several years of a state of emergency. The number of trips across national borders numbered just over 900 million, a reduction of 37 per cent from 2019. Despite the uncertainty in the world in the form of war and backlogs from the pandemic, the number of trips doubled in relation to the year before. Foreign tourists returned to Norway and the number of foreign overnight stays in 2022 was 9,813,229, 8 per cent less than in 2019.
Tourists from overseas markets took their time to come back, although aggressive initiatives in local markets throughout the pandemic seem to have produced results. Germany has traditionally been Norway’s largest market, and it grew further in 2022. The same applies to the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria.
Strategic marketing of Norway
In 2022, the public devoted a total of 146.1 million minutes to stories about and from Norway via Visit Norway’s channels. When users engage with content, it provides quality data that business can utilise in retargeting campaigns. These generated a total of 712,000 clicks for campaign participants in 2022. The marketing also won recognition in the form of 14 international awards.
Innovation Norway plays an important role in connecting Norwegian business interests to international customers. In 2022, we passed on a total of 12.4 million digital links between an interested public and Norwegian tourism products.
On visitnorway.com, we offer a commission-based affiliate programme where we link to the partners’ websites and to sales of their products. In 2022, this service generated a turnover of NOK 50.1 million, twice that seen in the previous record year of 2019. These link clicks account for 7 per cent of the total digital links between products and consumers.
Innovation Norway Tourism contributed to around 140 international journalists visiting in Norway in 2022, with good coverage across the country. Our PR work resulted in more than 1,500 articles in the US and Europe.
B2B – business focus
The Norwegian Travel Workshop was held in Kristiansand in 2022. Some 6,500 one-to-one meetings were held between Norwegian providers and 275 international tour operators and agents.
Norway has a good basis for being able to take part in the positive development within the experiences industry through a greater focus on event tourism. In 2022, we launched a national centre of excellence for events, to the delight and benefit of the players we work with in tourism, sports, and culture.
Sustainable destinations
The Sustainable Destination labelling scheme has become an important tool for systematising long-term work that focuses on increasing sustainability in the tourism industry. The potential associated with offering more experience products in Norwegian tourism to help extend seasons, create year-round jobs, and increase value creation is great. At the end of 2022, 53 destinations were included in the labelling scheme.