Team Edge of Norway at Norwegian Travel Workshop

Region Stavanger | Edge of Norway, recently attended the Norwegian Travel Workshop (NTW), the largest annual sales arena in Norway for international tour operators and travel agencies.

About Norwegian Travel Workshop

The event, organized by Innovation Norway Tourism / Visit Norway, celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. NTW serves as an excellent meeting point for approximately 350 buyers and a similar number of providers. A diverse range of buyers attended, including tour operators specializing in nature activities, culture, road trips, luxury tours, as well as major DMCs/wholesalers acting as intermediaries between local hotels, activity suppliers, bus companies, etc., and tour operators organizing group trips and independent tours. What they all shared was a serious interest in Norway as a destination for their international clients. The majority of participants already send a significant number of travelers to various parts of Norway.

From Region Stavanger, newly appointed sales manager for leisure, Morten Andreas Puntervoll, participated. More than 30 meetings, each lasting 15 minutes, were pre-booked and conducted over the course of two days, April 9th-10th.

The meetings calendar was packed with mostly very relevant clients, showing great interest in what Region Stavanger has to offer beyond Lysefjorden.

Morten Andreas Puntervoll, Region Stavanger

Members and partners in attendance

Region Stavanger was well surrounded by valued partners such as Rødne Fjord Cruise, Boreal Adventure, Go Ahead Nordic, Hotel Victoria, Sola Strand Hotel, Sirdal Fjellpark, and collaborative partners Visit Sirdal 365 and Visit Ryfylke. These representatives from the Edge of Norway family did an excellent job, conducting hundreds of meetings collectively to promote the region.

Focus on extended stays

The focus of this year’s workshop was to convey the possibilities of planning longer stays in the region. Many travel agencies already sell tours to the Stavanger region, often only for one night and exclusively with Lysefjorden and Preikestolen in the program. Since these are well-known attractions for many participants, the focus was primarily on promoting:

• Magma UNESCO Global Geopark
• Urban experiences
• Food and culture
• The islands and beaches
• Nature-based activities

Highlighting the strong contrast of the varied landscape from fjords and mountains to the archipelago, the lunar landscape in the south, and the elongated beaches of Jæren is important. Stavanger and Sandnes are more than a gateway to Lysefjorden. The challenge is that most leisure tourists coming to Western Norway have fjords as their absolute main goal.

NTW FAM-trip in the Stavanger region

With 350 tour operators and travel agencies present in Norway, many took the opportunity to visit various destinations to become better acquainted. Together with Fjord Norway, Region Stavanger and Visit Ryfylke hosted one of these FAM trips (familiarization trips) in the days following NTW, from April 11th to 14th. This was a great success. 15 travel agencies participated in a tour of the region and visited several attractions in the Stavanger region and Ryfylke. The travel agencies came from various parts of the world, including Japan, China, Thailand, the USA, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, ranging from large wholesalers to tour operators specializing in family tours, road trips, and culture etc.

The group received a nice tour of the Iron age farm, a guided city walk through Stavanger city center, and visited Swords in rock, Chili Chocolate, Taste of Ryfylke, Preikestolen pulpit rock, Lysefjorden, Sola beach, Norwegian Petroleum Museum, and a few restaurants + hotels.

The vibe in the group was excellent, and the feedback was very positive, both about the region, the experiences, and the professionalism of the program. Fjord Norway had overall responsibility for the implementation and did a fantastic job.

Great expectations

Region Stavanger summarizes the NTW meetings and the post-tour with high expectations that more tour operators and travel agencies will strengthen and include the Stavanger region in the programs and tours they sell, both for the group market and FIT.

NTW 2025

Next year, the Norwegian Travel Workshop will take place in Bodø. Region Stavanger looks forward to this and hopes to see even more Edge of Norway members at the fair in 2025.

For questions about the event or to express interest in participating with Region Stavanger at future sales activities, please contact Morten Andreas Putnervoll, Sales Manager for Leisure B2B.