Bård is a Senior Partner in Mimir AS, Norway´s leading tourism development consultancy.
He was deeply involved in the making of the new Norwegian Tourism Strategy 2030 called “Big impact, small footprint”, which was delivered to the Government from the Tourism Industry in April 2021.

Why did Norway need a new national strategy?
Tourism is important to Norway for many reasons: regional development, employment, value creation, exports and sustainability.
The tourist industry results in major ripple effects and value creation opportunities in other industries.
The tourism of tomorrow must adopt a win-win perspective, adding positive value for industry stakeholders, visitors, local communities, residents and our planet.

In his presentation Bård will give more insight into why and how they worked with the goal “Attractive communities and happy residents” and how it also relates to the conference theme.
One of the findings in the strategy work is that the potential in using well planned and well developed tourism as an important “ingredient” in place attractiveness is undervalued.
We can see in several places in Norway, i.e. in Lofoten, that the attractiveness of these islands are higher than in the region as a whole. Measured by increased population and i.e. talent attraction effects.
One of the tasks in the “follow up” work on the national strategy is to bring tourism higher up on the agenda on how to develop attractive communities. And show how this can be done by involving the tourism sector and what kind of impact it gives. This also means that the tourism industry needs to come out of its own “bubble” and engage itself in these issues.

Bård will talk about how the local tourism sector needs to be invited into plans and projects with the aim of developing place attractiveness and better places to live and work.