Smart Ways: Behavior-Smart Boost for a Destination Strategy

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Västmanland Region is one of the beautiful regions located in Central Sweden. While it is relatively small in territory compared to most other regional tourism destinatinations in the country, it is super ambitious and bold in experimenting with innovative approaches towards tourism promotion and sustainability. We worked with the tourism authorities in Västmanland Region to identify behavior-smart improvements that can help local tourism businesses be more competitive on international markets and be better at sustainability. We worked with a group of pilot businesses to apply and test these techniques before developing a special Smart Ways manual for all local companies in the region with step-by-step guidance on how to apply behavior-smart tactics to optimize pricing, improve online presence, increase local spending, lower environmental footprint, etc. The manual was rolled out with a series of training workshops and advisory services supporting its adoption.

The Smart Ways manual is available in both Swedish and English, and is currently promoted as a valuable resource for tourism companies across Sweden by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (Tillvaxtverket)