{"id":3979,"date":"2011-01-03T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/?p=3979"},"modified":"2011-01-03T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T23:00:00","slug":"hurtigruten-sailing-out-of-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2011\/01\/hurtigruten-sailing-out-of-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurtigruten sailing out of trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"
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source: Views and News from Norway <\/a><\/i><\/span> <\/p>\n

Norway\u2019s passenger shipping line Hurtigruten hasn\u2019t only sailed through a sea of financial trouble in recent years. Now it\u2019s setting records in the winter off-season and charting a new course in Arctic areas.<\/p>\n

The Norwegian shipping line with its unique vessels that combine cruising, ferry- and cargo service has seen winter bookings jump 32 percent this year, reports newspaper Nordlys. Over the past four years, the number of passenger overnight stays has more than doubled.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that Hurtigruten\u2019s marketing strategy to attract tourists during the winter has been a success. The shipping line has made the prospect of seeing the Northern Lights or experiencing sheer winter darkness as enticing as the Midnight Sun in the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many, seeing the Northern Lights (nordlyset, or aurora borealis) is nearly a religious experience,\u201d Aud R\u00e6stad, cruise director on board the Hurtigruten ship Polarlys told Nordlys. \u201cTears stream down their faces, and those who manage to take pictures of the Northern Lights are overjoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confirmed reservations for sailings in January, February and March this year are up 32 percent over the same months in 2010. The biggest increase has occurred among German tourists, followed by the British, French and Dutch. Hurtigruten earlier has reported strong increases in tourists from China as well, while the US market has traditionally been among the line\u2019s most important.<\/p>\n

Last fall\u2019s re-negotiation of a contract with the state to ensure transportation service along remote stretches of the coast was critical in securing Hurtigruten\u2019s finances. Chief executive Olav Fjell recently told newspaper Dagens N\u00e6ringsliv (DN) that now the shipping line can build upon it, and he\u2019s already eyeing new routes in the Arctic.<\/p>\n

Fjell says it\u2019s not unthinkable to someday offer cruises beyond Greenland, for example, and into the Northwest Passage and Arctic areas recently explored by Norwegian adventurer B\u00f8rge Ousland. \u201cThat type of cruise is in huge demand,\u201d Fjell told DN.<\/p>\n

Hurtigruten already offers cruises to Svalbard, Greenland and from South America to Antarctica, in addition to its coastal cruising from Bergen to Kirkenes in northern Norway and its special cruises in the Baltic and Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

The company has around 2,400 employees and annual revenues of around NOK 4 billion. It reported a 10.3 percent increase in operating profits for last year\u2019s third quarter but a pre-tax loss of NOK 118 million tied to a lack of gains on currency exchange, reported DN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

source: Views and News from Norway Norway\u2019s passenger shipping line Hurtigruten hasn\u2019t only sailed through a sea of financial trouble in recent years. Now it\u2019s setting records in the winter off-season and charting a new course in Arctic areas. The Norwegian shipping line with its unique vessels that combine cruising, ferry- and cargo service has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[341],"class_list":["post-3979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-hurtigruten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}