NordicMarketing at the Nordic Marketplace in Copenhagen

NordicMarketing team on the road in Denmark's capital

At the end of February, part of the NordicMarketing team travelled to Copenhagen. The perfect occasion for our team trip to the Danish capital was the Nordic Marketplace, now recognised as one of the most important B2B workshops in the Nordic and Baltic tourism calendar. In addition to attending the opening of the workshop and two get-together events, there was enough time for us as a team to explore the city and look ahead to the near future of NordicMarketing.

Nordic Marketplace in Copenhagen

The Nordic Marketplace is a sales workshop where buyers from all over the world meet suppliers from the Nordic and Baltic countries. This year, the workshop took place on 20 February at the Tivoli Hotel in Copenhagen. The sales workshop is organised by the Nordic Tourism Collective and ETOA, and this year NordicMarketing participated as a partner for the first time.

Prior to the event, we spread the word among our contacts and invited tour operators from DACH and Benelux to Copenhagen. Once there, our main focus was to get to know the event as a team. Our goal for the coming years is to deepen our cooperation with Nordic Tourism Collective and ETOA, especially with regard to the combination of our online event NORDEUROPA and the Nordic Marketplace.

Get-together at the Home of Carlsberg

The Nordic Marketplace opened with a get-together in a very special place, the Home of Carlsberg. In this informal setting, suppliers and buyers who had already arrived in Copenhagen were able to exchange ideas, clink glasses over a freshly tapped Carlsberg beer and enjoy delicious smørrebrød.

As a special highlight, part of the Home of Carlsberg exhibition awaited us. Recently reopened after extensive modernisation, it tells the story of company founder Jacob Christian Jacobsen and his family. Particularly spectacular is the large room with a beer collection of more than 22,000 bottles from all over the world, from the 19th century to the present day. It's worth looking for your own favourite beer – everyone in our team has discovered theirs. 😉

Workshop day at the Tivoli Hotel

It was particularly exciting for us as a team to experience the start of the workshop day. The workshop was opened by Tom Jenkins (ETOA), Paul Wagner, Andy Fairburn (Nordic Tourism Collective) and Jan Badur (NordicMarketing). Jan took the opportunity to announce that the cooperation will be further developed to offer buyers and suppliers even more opportunities through the combination of NORDEUROPA and Nordic Marketplace.

A special feature of the Nordic Marketplace is that the buyers have their fixed seats and the suppliers change tables from meeting to meeting. As it is usually the other way round, this means that suppliers have to rethink their organisation, as they usually have a lot of documents with them that need to be carried around rather than left lying on a table.

The fast and efficient schedule of 12 minutes per meeting and immediate change is also unusual for many first-time attendees. To ensure that everything runs smoothly, participants receive a printed list of all appointments and table numbers in advance. Another feature of the Nordic Marketplace is that meeting slots are kept free for 'open meetings', i.e. spontaneous meetings or meetings with contacts for whom the meeting request could not be fulfilled. This option has received a lot of positive feedback from participants.

After the successful sales workshop, the reception at the Tivoli Hotel provided a relaxed end to the day with interesting discussions. We also took the opportunity to see many contacts again or meet them in person for the first time. The perfect opportunity to catch up with long-standing customers, partners and contacts in the travel industry.

NordicMarketing team in Copenhagen

In addition to the Nordic Marketplace events, we also had the chance to explore the city together as a team and spend time away from our laptops. As we have almost all been working from home since March 2020 and are spread all over Germany, team trips like this are always a good opportunity to work on ourselves as a team and exchange and develop ideas together.

Part of the team trip was, of course, the obligatory sightseeing. In order to see as much as possible in just a few hours, we took a hop-on, hop-off bus around Copenhagen. Luckily, the weather was on our side and we were able to take a relaxed stroll around the city without getting wet. A photo with the Little Mermaid and a walk around Nyhavn are of course a must in Copenhagen, in our case with a delicious lunch and soft ice cream for dessert. Always especially impressive in the Nordic capitals: the perfect combination of the modern and the old.

Focusing on the years ahead

Of course, we also used our time together on site to look ahead to the near future of NordicMarketing. In particular, we focused on NORDEUROPA 2025, because we all know that time flies. Goals were set, initial strategies developed, suggestions for improvement thought through... Of course, we're aiming to make our online sales event even better for both suppliers and buyers, and have more people mark it as a must-attend in their calendars. We're all working together as a team to make this happen! 😊

We are excited to see how the cooperation with Nordic Tourism Collective and ETOA will develop in the coming months. Experiencing the Nordic Marketplace 2024 as a team on site was a good start for further cooperation and we look forward to combining our expertise even more in the future.