Transcript – Winter Sports Events
Simon: Good afternoon. Welcome to snow business in Lillehammer. My name is Simon
Westgarth, and I am here with.
Ragni: Ragni
Cecilie: Cecilie
Daniel: Daniel
Hanna: Hanna
Maria: Maria
Simon: Welcome, guys. And earlier today, we were lucky to have Stein Olsen,
who has been part of the events around Lillehammer since the Olympics. So for
a long, long time, a huge amount of expertise and we had a lecture from him.
So first of all, he talked about…
Cecilie: Rada
Simon: And what was that?
Cecilie: It used to be Visit Lillehammer, I think.
Daniel: Yeah it is a merge of Visit Lillehammer, Visit Mjøsa and Nasjonalparkriket.
Simon: And what were they?
Daniel: Well, they were smaller DMOs, that were operating independently at that point. And at
some point it was decided that the three of them would merge into one bigger company, which
now employs around eight employees.
Simon: So we've got these merging of a previous smaller DMOs into one single destination
management organization. Because, for example, if you went to Visit Lillehammers website,
they will only ever talk about things happening upstream of Lillehammer and never anything
downstream of it. So and of course that's a missed opportunity for other people. So and what
else was Rada about? What was their strategy?
Hanna: Their strategy is to not only have Norwegian tourism focus on the fjords, the cities and
up north, but also find other opportunities for them to be on the map and that people that travel
to the other regions of Norway also stop and come to Lillehammer and Gudbrandsdalen and
the whole region.
Simon: Yes, it is very much since especially since social media, Norway is famously known
for its fjords and uh and the cities. Plus of course, in more recent times the Arctic
north, Nordic tourism, whether it's looking for northern lights in the winter or the midnight sun
in the summer. It has also come on to the map, as well as destinations like the Lofoten Islands.
And so Lillehammer and Innlandet has felt there's a missed opportunity and they would like to
be the almost the fourth leg of the stool. That is like when people think of Norway. How are
they gonna go about this?
Hanna: I think that he was talking about that this region is very typically Norwegian and that
they want to try to focus on that and market the Norwegian culture and lifestyle as a yeah,
USP, maybe.
Simon: Yeah, we've got lots um yeah, very much so. It has the the classic um tunette situation
where you have traditional farms and everything around there, this is pretty much iconic
in Gudbrandsdal. That is the name of the long valley that goes north of Lillehammer all the way
up. It has the Gudbrandsdal Lågen river in it, and this whole area is very much traditional
Norway and a lot of the folklore stories are on Askeladden will be from these areas. They have
that fit in those kind of northern saga folklore stories that are typically well known in the
Germanic world, that's for sure. And areas here where they and they would quite often wear
the Bunad, which is the traditional dress for a number of different occasions a year. So it is
very typically Norwegian. I'm pointed to the Norwegians in the room too add more.
Cecilie: You're talking about folklore and stuff like that, then you can visit Hunderfossen.
That's a good tip.
Simon: Yeah, there's a family park called Hunderfossen, where they have many plays during
the day, short plays, and it’s open principally in the summer as well as it has fairground rise
and the alike. And there they use traditional folklore stories and tales, within the offer, within
the park. And what else from Rada? Was there anything else that stood out?
Cecilie: Just one more thing about Hunderfossen. They have a winter park and show and ice
hotel, they’re trying.
Simon: Yeah, that's true. So
Cecilie: It's not a big thing, but.
Simon: Yeah, yeah. Hunderfossen Park is open in the winter as well. They have a winter
opening, where they have ice hotel, where they have weddings. They also again, have a winter
play there and different actors go round in in costume looking like creatures from the folklore
stories. What’s one interesting thing we've reverting back to Atle Hove from Beitostølen, he
always talks about Hunderfossen being the really good example of a destination or an an
attraction where they always have something new. Every year, they have something new to
keep people coming back, and that Hunderfossen is just opposite of Hafjell, literally. Still in the
commune of Lillehammer, right by the Olympic sliding center, but it's all kind of very close
together up in the Gudbrandsdal valley. And another strategy they were talking about with
Rada was sustainability. Okay, and sustainability in events, so we have a person in the room
here who was part of the volunteering team, at Kvitfjell to tell us that what went on for yourself.
Hanna: So I was there on the two days before the World Cup started and we set up all the
trash cans and cleaned everything up so that the guests and also the other volunteers would
be able to throw their trash away correctly so that recycling and waste management could go
on correctly. And then also we were supporting the sustainability managers that coordinated
everything and also calculated the CO2 emissions of the event and they just reported on what
went on on the event in sustainability regards.
Simon: So in parts of the planning it is quite obvious that they had a strategy for sustainability.
And I remember Stein Olsen was telling us there was an incentive for this from the government,
that they could get funding for the event if they had this policy in place. Which of course
meant that it was probably an easy way with a team of volunteers to implement everything. It's
the easy way to get funding.
Maria: He mentioned as well that one of the objectives is that they well, want to measured the
triple bottom line, the economic, environmental and the social aspect when it comes to
sustainability. And that's why for instance, for the environment, he mentioned that they want to
preserve the nature and the cultural heritage. And like with the help of the National Park
management, the outdoor recreation organizations and municipalities, he also highlighted the
eco labeling. So that they improved sustainability through ecolabeling because yeah, it's an
effective way for tourism businesses to get more sustainable. And also the transport
improvement of the transport, he highlighted that there are pilots for transfer buses on demand
Lillehammer Skystasjon, the train station to Hafjell.
Simon: Yeah, there's definitely been an improvement in the shuttle around the resort from
Hafjell and an increasing number of buses from Lillehammer center to Hafjell this winter trying
to improve on the kind of the last mile at an attraction, is the phrase that is known. They’re
trying to make it easier for people to come to destination and be able to get to go where they
want, where they don't have the are not inhibited by hiring a car and all the additional expense
of that, if they don't need it. Well, Lillehammer, there's a train every hour, north, south to the
airport. So it's well connected in terms of communication lines. And once you get to a
destination and it should be quite easy to get around and then this was all within this
sustainability kind of strategy. But equally with that in mind, how was it to get to Kvitfjell?
Hanna: So if you don't take the car then there's also the opportunity to take the train because
they built a train station in Kvitfjell just for the World Cup and Stein told us that there were
already 35,000 people that used this train to go skiing this year.
Simon: Yes, it used to be simply a request stop but during the winter months that Kvitfjell is
open the train stops and to the point that I think some of the trains are even decorated with
logos on them as a nickname the ski train is principally for this and it's interestingly enough
that another destination the Alpinco at the owner of Kvitfjell board is Oppdal again on the train
line. But why events?
Ragni: Okay so they have events to like get money to the local community and to be like this
host destination and they also wants event that they can work with and Stein B Olsen also told
that they got this amount of money so they don't have all the money in the whole world so they
have to like pick out the events that they want to work with.
Simon: Probably events that reflect their values and things they've had happen before.
Ragni: And they want to like have this focus on the green events about the eco label and focus
on the green.
Simon: Yeah so for example there will be no motocross world championships here but there's
more likely to be events that reflect their value from what they already have. Okay and he
talked about this ripple effect. Okay what did you have on that?
Hanna: I mean generally he means that the events should also benefit the local community
and that the visitors that come to see the events should also stay in the region and spend their
money on other things like accommodation food in local shops so that everyone benefits from
it and the community also benefits from tourism.
Simon: Yeah this idea of tertiary spend. The tourists come they don't just also spend on the
primary accommodation they do other things in the destination and the longer they stay the
more money they spend of course and this is an important aspect for events. I mean I believe
he gave the example of the Birkebeiner race of increase of international ski races coming and
this is a trend they looking to develop whereby people will come and stay longer because if
you come if you fly in from Italy you're unlikely to stay one night to do the race and leave you're
likely to stay for longer and arguably with the weaker corona presently this is still attractive to
come for them.
Daniel: Also one benefit with the kind of events that are hosted in Lillehammer typically is that
you're not only sort of dependent on the visitors coming in because you also have the
participants and their teams basically guaranteed to come even if hypothetically there wouldn't
be or if there's only very little visitors coming you always have at least people participating and
their teams and families and so on coming to the destination.
Simon: And this is very the story for the Birkebeiner this is this long-distance ski race from
Rena in east valley to Lillehammer that is the iconography of it is the story of Prince Haakon
trying to escape the scandals in Gudbrandsdalen ambush and then they basically become a
ski race and also it's a running race in the early summer and a bike race in the late summer,
but the ski race is arguably the whole aspect of it and even if an athlete comes they come
maybe with their coach and support team and maybe their family as well and this increases
considerably the amount of people in destination for one event where arguably the spectators
is probably a smaller crowd of that there's not one particular pace you could go to watch maybe
at the finish or coming down Midtfjell or coming through Sjusjøen, but in the end it's a big event
really for the destination it is during week 11 so after the main winter holidays and considerable
economic benefit for both Lillehammer and Sjusjøen where lots of people stay which is along
the racetrack as well. And then there was discussion about Olympic region this kind of 365 day
concept what did he mean by that?
Hanna: He was basically saying that it is important to the region that their Olympic legacy takes
place every day of the year so 365 days a year so that they use all the facilities from the
Olympic Games and use them every day for their original means, but also for other means and
they host lots of different sports events or other events in those facilities so that people come
to those places every day and use them.
Simon: Yeah I mean one of the issues if you're going to host the Olympics is you're always
worried about the legacy and what will happen afterwards and so a long-term strategy at
Lillehammer is to try to use everything they've got year-round whether that's the sliding centre
that starts getting cold enough towards the end of October and then from there all the way
through until February there's always either training competitions at certain levels and then this
last winter there was a World Cup there for example and then in the crosscountry area at the
Birkebeiner Stadium there's training events all the time as well as they host events like the
Birkebeiner and then World Cup races for cross-country and biathlon and then with those who
did the Olympic Park podcast earlier we talked about how Håkons Hall gets used for a whole
host of smaller actors doing different things but also there was this kind of this idea where they
the Olympic Park tried to attract these small minor almost quirky events going on so this year
they talked about the indoor world championships of rowing so literally on a machine in the
gym that kind of thing and they got this deaf dive concept where they're gonna have a pool in
the middle of the Håkons Hall and there's a certain way you dive into this pool and all kinds of
these events that you wouldn't necessarily thought would attract people and yet there's clearly
a following why wouldn't and they know through different matrix what could work and what they
could pursue. So Stein he also talked about this these matrix from surveys from events and
how they use the data they capture to plan events and then they could also show sponsors the
media coverage there they got in terms of minutes on tv exposure and the likes so what else
was in that that he spoke about with about this kind of behavioral economic side of catching
the data?
Maria: Well he simply mentioned the event calculator from PWC from 2012 but that's the one
that measures the economic effects and he also mentioned as you already said some
questionnaires he would make two people to see how was their stay or what were their
expenses just to recollect some data that would be useful for them.
Simon: Yeah so we got this kind of surveying of tourists that have been to events or just to the
destination and then we have this event calculator where they can project the potential tertiary
or ripple effects spent in destination and this certainly allows them to go to local government
regional and national government and also to the sports associations to justify why they have
the this or it was successful to come here because look at this, this is what happened and I felt
this was a really important aspect of what he, him and his team does in time to leverage event
tourism rather than just say yeah it's great we get this many people, it was actually hard facts
okay and then they can find out behaviors and changes and trends within that and for us as
within the business school faculty here at the university this kind of behavioral economics and
working out why people do things and what could be the outcome is really important for us.
Anything else from that that springs to mind? Moving on, what else did he say towards the
end? He indicated the what's coming down the line.
Cecilie: Yeah it was planned almost to 30 I think, 2032, so 36.
Simon: Yeah he definitely talked about Olympic years, they were in the schedule and they
were, it's the first time I heard him talk about the Olympics coming back to Lillehammer before
it was not necessarily on the cards.
Cecilie: He said that it’s the first time he said it.
Simon: Yeah and do you remember the date he was thinking about? Yeah I think it is he
talked about maybe the Swiss would have it in 2038 and therefore the window opportunity for
Lillehammer Norway would be 2042 possibly. But then he also pointed there was another event
towards the end he talked about which was the FIS games where they would have a skiing
and snowboarding for both able-bodied and para-athletes which was a 25-day event in this
area and what kind of if we hosted a 25- day world championships what would that mean to
the normal tourism destination here during the winter?
Hanna: It would mean that there is a lot of hotel rooms and cabins occupied by the visitors and
participants of the event so that there's not that many space for the regular tourists such as
skiers at Hafjell or Sjusjøen so that we would need either a lot more cabins or hotel beds than
we have now or that they have to move somewhere else to other regions but that's not
something we want because all the tourists should preferably come to Lillehammer in the
region so there would be a problem with hotel beds cabin beds and just yeah tourist nights.
Simon: I suppose you have to kind of how you think about you're going to manage the impact
of that maybe the nordic will be in the first five days only and then they would go if it were and
then maybe the biathletes will come for a host of days and they will go and then in come the
ski jumpers and then nordic and behind and that's just thinking of nordic events both para and
able-bodied athletes and then you think about the alpine events that will I suppose it will have
to be overlapped and considered as to when otherwise you end up getting a shortage of supply
while the demand is really high and of course traditional tourists who probably would like to
come at that time and been knowing might be a bit shocked by accommodation might be
slightly more expensive than they had anticipated.
Daniel: Also on the ski slopes themselves there will probably have to be more areas that are
closed off for the events and the preparation of the events so you basically have to pay more
money for less ski slopes.
Simon: Yeah yeah it could be a squeeze on your amount of available slopes you would hope
to have skied and then perhaps a squeeze upward pressure on prices for everything during
that time. No doubt that's how it is when you have large events but uh yeah but for destinations
that rely on regular tourists like Hafjell and Kvifjell that may be a bit of a surprise. Yeah anything
else left for our lecture from Stein Olsen? What did you really take away from it?
Ragni: So the events they are depending on volunteers so if they don't have any volunteers
they will have no events.
Simon: Indeed I didn't have time to ask him but there used to be this Trollløype ski marathon
that used to happen every year and then two years ago they didn't have enough volunteers
and they've stopped doing it and it was an iconic 100 kilometer plus race but it just doesn't
happen anymore.
Hanna: I think it's important to say that international visitors and participants are getting more
important for tourism and event tourism in the region because they just bring more money like
the ripple down effect and the tertiary spend. It's just important that not only Norwegians that
go home to sleep at their own house come to see the events but also others like Germans or
Chinese people even that come here and spend all their money on hotels restaurants.
Ragni: They also had focus on local food to get meat from the local farms.
Simon: Yeah that was definitely a trend that Stein Olsen pointed out that they this focus of the
new Arada DMO is to try and present local food and this has been a movement that's happened
here in Norway for some time local mat and having local suppliers offer food at events. We
saw this at Hafjell there were 10 local suppliers during the recent World Cup technical race for
the men's there and they were all very busy during the whole both days that they were racing.
It was great to see.
Cecilie: You said only from Annis you know in Ringebu. She must have a lot to do.
Simon: Well if you are a really good butcher you can you probably always have lots to do.
Yeah that was definitely at Kvitfjell. They've been there for a long time each time they had the
World Cup there.
Daniel: One thing that I found noteworthy or nice to point out is that he when discussing
sustainability he said that sustainability is a joint effort so everyone in the region and everyone
participating in the events has to work together to try to make the events more sustainable and
it's not just sort of this thing that can be dictated sort of from the top down and so it's a thing
where everyone has to get involved and everyone has to do their part and everyone also can
contribute to making events more sustainable.
Simon: Yeah this sense that it's a joint endeavour and it isn't just about being told what is
correct or what is more desirable but people to have the agency to get involved involved with
that and within that interestingly enough is that all the different communes within the Rada
DMO many of them are far rural places where they don't necessarily have a vast amount
they're not very rich communes and they haven't always followed kind of more sustainable
approaches let's say to waste management for example and so within this whole approach of
Rada is a sense that they will try to get everyone up to a certain level. I thought it was quite an
admirable pursuit within their sustainability strategy. Okay after a long day here at the university
and a couple of podcast recordings this is the end of this one so I'd like to say thank you to
everyone in the room and it is time to say goodbye.
Everyone: Goodbye