The Brand of Sweden!

Jag har läst boken "Hostmanship - The art of making people feel welcome" av Jan Gunnarsson och Olle Blom. Att få människor att känna sig välkomna tycker jag borde vara en självklarhet. Jag har rest en hel del och är ute på en resa mest hela tiden. Jag möter många människor och bemöts väldigt olika. De allra duktigaste ser igenom fasaden och tar sig tid att träffa "människan", men tiden för det finns inte alltid. Men tiden för ett leende och vänlighet bör alltid finnas där!

Jag vill ge er ett citat från boken: "Sweden is more than a country. It´s a brand we use to attract not only guests but also investors and foreign companies. 

One of the purposes of our national hostmanship in other words is to manage the Sweden brand.

We Swedes have a lot to be proud of. We are good at languages and despite our country's relatively small size have been able to spread our culture far beyond our boarders.

Today we are the third largest nation in musical exports, which is crazy considering we have a population of less than ten million.

Department stores in practically every country offer Scandinavian furnishings and  fashion.

We have received awards for our food and our skills in sports such as soccer, tennis and golf.

And every year we ourselves present an award that is considered the greatest recognition a scientist or statesman can receive.

All his for a country way up north, so sparsely populated that our guests are constantly woundering where everyone is. 

Ours is a country where you can still see the stars at night, where peace and tranquility embrace unspoiled and seemingly unending natural resources.

Despite all these successes, there are still so few of us that we don't even fill up our country. We can't afford to have as many airline and rail routes as we´d like when the largest city north of Stockholm ist´t much bigger than the average "European suburb. Our hostmanship must be expressed with these premises in mind.

At the same time that we safeguard our Swedish heritage, we can never forget our dependence on foreign influences. Hundreds of thousands of people have already enriched our country and hostmanship through the years, and we can only hope that they will continue to play a part in our future. 

Our Swedish hostmanship naturally includes how we take care of people from different cultural backgrounds who choose to live here with us. Together with them, we will shape our nation and the hostmanship we offer the rest of the world."

Det är en konst att få människor att känna sig välkomna - att behandla andra som man själv vill bli behandlad.

Vi gör det tillsammans!