Travel and Tourism Sweden in brief / A nation of travelers

Sweden in brief / A nation of travelers

On the whole, the Swedes are extremely well-traveled. Travel by charter tour packages took off in earnest during the 1950s, first to Mallorca and later the Canary Islands (Spain). Today travel has expanded to the point where it has become common among Swedish young people to make round-the-world trips and for Swedish middle-class families to travel as far as Thailand on their winter vacations. Heavy travel is an important explanation for the Swedish people's high degree of internationalization and good knowledge of English and other languages.

Full speed! Photo: Henrik Trygg/Image Bank Sweden

A significantly more recent phenomenon is that travel into and out of Sweden is well on its way toward reaching a balance. Foreign tourism in Sweden has increased dramatically in recent years. What can be called "nature tourism" still accounts for most such travel. Sweden's exceptional natural scenery and enormous tracts of untouched wilderness are a major attraction to the inhabitants of more densely populated parts of Europe and the world. People from around the globe travel to Lapland to experience the magnificent natural scenery and such exotic phenomena as the midnight sun, the aurora borealis (northern lights), Arctic chill and total silence. During the warmer half of the year, people mainly from other countries of Europe travel to all parts of Sweden to enjoy the luxury of peaceful solitude in a splendid natural setting.

However, the type of tourism in Sweden that has grown the fastest by far in recent years is big-city tourism. Stockholm has become a world attraction, luring tourists from all over the world with its unique mixture of natural beauty, cultural heritage and modern international urban culture, including its dynamic design, fashion, gastronomic, music, art and entertainment scenes. The country's second largest city, Göteborg, is a hub for maritime traffic on the North Sea and also has plenty to offer people in search of entertainment and cultural experiences. Since the opening of the Öresund Bridge, Sweden's third-largest city, Malmö, has joined the Danish capital of Copenhagen to form an exciting new cross-border metropolitan region.