The summer outing and holiday is underway for many, and several municipalities have already begun to experience the traffic of tourists arriving at houses and cottages.
The coastal town of Risør, which has around 4,600 inhabitants, has attracted tourists every weekend since Easter, says mayor Per Kristian Lunden (Labor). In a normal summer season, the population tends to triple.
– We are very happy for a lot of visits and it means a lot to the business community, so we think it’s great. But we are entering the summer with high shoulders and great uncertainty, says the Risør mayor to Dagbladet.
As recently as Tuesday, it became known that a cabin tourist had tested positive for corona. The cabin resident belongs to the family at a cabin in the municipality where another family member tested positive last week, the municipality states.
MAYOR: The coastal town of Risør, which has around 4,600 inhabitants, has had many tourists since Easter, says mayor Per Kristian Lunden. Photo: Trond Reidar Teigen / NTB
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– It is incredibly important that those who are thinking about a holiday and starting to get symptoms, stay at home, test themselves and clarify the situation before they travel, he says.
Prepared for infection
Lofoten is also a very popular destination for Norwegians on holiday in Norway. Remi Solberg (Labor Party), mayor of Vestvågøy and leader of the Lofoten Council, urged tourists before Easter to stay at home, in fear of contagion growth.
Today the situation is different:
– We are prepared that we can get infected, but it will not be so serious. Now those who have been most exposed, and those with underlying diseases, have been vaccinated, Solberg tells Dagbladet.
MAYOR: Remi Solberg (Labor Party), mayor of Vestvågøy and leader of the Lofoten Council, welcomes tourists to their home municipality. Photo: Lars Eivind Bones / Dagbladet.
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He is the leader of the Lofoten Council, which is a council for the six municipalities Vestvågøy, Vågan, Flakstad, Moskenes, Værøy and Røst.
– Do you have the impression that there will be many tourists this year?
– The tourism industry has received bookings. It is not as great as before, but there is hope that we can normalize. The tourism industry is very important for my municipality and for Lofoten as a region, he says.
Solberg himself has a background from the tourism industry before he became full-time mayor, and is still a co-owner of a tourist service company that had 90 percent decrease in turnover this year.
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Foreign tourists
EU system allows fully vaccinated and former covid-19 patients from some European countries to enter Norway without having to carry out entry quarantine and tests at the border.
In his own municipality Vestvågøy with 11,000 inhabitants, the mayor has already met foreign tourists at the store, he says. Most tourists are still from Norway.
However, the mayor is not worried about the influx of Norwegian and foreign tourists.
– Of course there is an X-factor associated with corona, but our municipalities have prepared well in relation to having TISK capacity. We are responsible if someone should come here and need to be isolated, then we must provide housing, he says.
So-called TISK is intensified testing, isolation, infection detection and quarantine.
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– Well prepared
– We see that there are fewer tourists than usual, says mayor Irene Heng Lauvsnes (H) in Strand municipality. Among other things, there is the tourist magnet Preikestolen.
According to Preikestolen’s website, the mountain plateau draws over 300,000 people every year. Last summer, the parking capacity at Preikestolen was blown up, with a queue all the way down to the national road.
The mayor states that at the Pulpit Rock, it is the Pulpit Rock Foundation that organizes and provides extra washing and the like.
POPULAR: Tourists flock to the Pulpit Rock by the Lysefjord. Photo: Paul Kleiven / NTB Scanpix
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– They got very good training last year, and we are very well prepared, so I’m not really that worried, says Lauvsnes and adds that people are used to keeping their distance.
“Everyone is very welcome here, but we ask people to pay attention when, for example, they are at our toilets or if the paths become cramped,” says the mayor.
She states that it is, among other things, the cruise tourists that are missing, which is one of the reasons why there are fewer tourists than usual.
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– The traffic is on
Mayor Per Kjøllesdal (Sp) in Stryn municipality also says that it is still at the beginning of the season, and that there are therefore not that many tourists in place yet.
– But the traffic is underway, and there will probably be more in July, he says to Dagbladet and adds:
– Of course you think about the possibilities for infection, but I’m not very worried.
Nakstad: – Take this into account
He says that they were significantly more worried before last year’s summer holiday. Nevertheless, it went “insanely well”, and the municipality did not have a single outbreak last summer, he says.
The mayor states that the plan for 2021 is similar to last year.
– We have set up a little more information, and rectified some challenges related to toilets and garbage management, he says and adds:
– Fortunately, we have a tourism industry that is very professional.
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