The West Sweden Tourist Board has put in place a help desk to give guidance on questions from business with regards to the COVID19 pandemic and the tourism situation.

A website providing information to tourist information is also available:

Highlight of West Sweden’s measures

ECONOMIC SUPPORT

The Swedish government has put in place several measures to help companies, including tourism sector:

- Short time work allowance
- Temporarily reduced social fees
- Support based on reduced turnover
- No first sick day deduction
- Sick pay from the government instead of the employer
- Reduced rent
- Easier to get loans

The West Sweden tourism board is also supporting local tourism organizations to enable repayment of membership fees to tourism businesses

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

The Tourist Board of Western Sweden has created a free web-based education program for the visitor industry in Western Sweden:

Participating companies receive funding with 70% of the actual staff cost (salary and statutory social security contributions) for an employee participating in the training. The salary is maximized to SEK 30,000 per month and the maximum compensation is SEK 50,000 per place of education.

The program comprises a total of SEK 10 million in support to companies and is financed by Region Västra Götaland. The training is aimed at private companies at the Nordic and World levels (according to the Tourist Board's classification system Sweden-Norden-Välden) with a maximum of 20 employees.

The training will deal with subjects that make participating companies well prepared when better times come: sustainability, host, social media marketing, development of the company's website and events

The Tourist Board offers about 200 educational places and distributes a paid place per company. It is only first to the mill that applies. Two people at the same company can share a training site.

Owners are also welcome to apply for support for their own actual salary.

DATA ANALYTICS

Analysis is of bookings for summer 2020

Contacted around 200 tourism business to get updated information about their situation

PROMOTION / MARKETING

- Website content adapted
- “Support your local favorite” – take away and home delivery
- Regular social media posts promoting the outdoors and sharing pictures from West Sweden
- Planning a “Book this summer” campaign
- Planning a series of short films/live streaming from individual firms to be sent via social media channels

Other Information of Interest

The visual presentation of the West Sweden Tourism Board