What Haaland Mania Won’t Do for Norway Tourism

Erling Haaland’s World Cup run has produced one of the largest bursts of free attention any country will get this decade, and it will do close to nothing for Norwegian tourism for the same reason his Instagram added around 15 million followers in a few weeks: the attention is attached to him, not to Norway.

It will move search traffic, it may produce a few bookings in the big football markets. None of it changes how Norwegian tourism actually works.

He is a Manchester City striker wearing a Norway shirt in stadiums in the United States, reviewing New York delis and posing in a cowboy hat in Texas. None of it leaves behind a Norwegian fjord that anyone watching can picture themselves in, let alone book. The mania is real. The country it is supposedly selling is a backdrop it never shows. Norway’s moment this summer is happening 4,000 miles from Norway.

The biggest gainer of followers isn’t Haaland