Museum Nord presented SKREI at the Lofoten Conference

10 February 2025

“This winter’s most important meeting place for people and businesses in Lofoten”

Every winter, the Lofoten Conference is held. Many people gather here to listen, debate and be inspired. This year’s theme was “Decisiveness, when words become reality”.

The conference started with several speakers who gave us valuable knowledge. The purpose is to place Lofoten’s business community and social development in a global perspective. Where is the world going? And, is Lofoten going in step? The participants come not only from Lofoten, but the surrounding regions.

The conference had several main themes

Under each main topic, there were speakers who gave us useful information, food for thought and inspiration to tackle the tasks.

• Location and destination development in Lofoten
• Energy transition and production
• Technology development in seafood and shipping
• Sustainable mobility

Many good speakers

There were highly topical and inspiring topics that were up for both presentations and debates.

Among the various speakers was Bjørg-Elin Kärn from LoveFood on stage. She talked about the amounts of food that are actually produced in our region. . It is impressive to hear about the efforts and results of those she refers to as “food heroes” and “changemakers”.

The program board for the Green Islands was also on stage. They talk about both ambitions and ongoing tasks that the Green Islands are working on.

Tourism Manager Line R. Samuelsen shared figures with us – figures related to value creation in the tourism industry. She was also clear that the tourism industry offers great opportunities, but that it will require action for us to maintain control. It is important that the tourism industry is developed so that Lofoten is not only an attractive destination, but a good place to live. Destination Lofoten is strongly engaged in the work with visitor management – a work that can sometimes seem to “fall between stools” in relation to who is responsible for what, and who should cover the costs of this. Hard work is being done from several quarters to find good solutions to the problems.

Editor-in-chief of the Knowledge Bank, Jeanette Gundersen, presented a number of thought-provoking facts about Northern Norway and the development here. Tourism Manager Line Samuelsen was clear that we must take action to make Lofoten both a good place to visit and to live. Audun Pettersen, Head of Department for Tourism Development at Innovation Norway, gave us a quick insight into how the number of travellers will grow. (Photo: Museum Nord)

Museum Nord – about facilitating good experiences

Our post was focused on the fact that SKREI (which opens in 2026) has calculated with 140,000 visitors per year – and how we work to solve practical challenges related to this. If we see SKREI as a destination in itself, there are many exciting tasks to be solved – beyond creating an attractive museum and marketing this.

For example, we have to plan for a high number of guests in relation to parking and toilets. We have to think about how we facilitate a good audience flow, both for ourselves and for the guests. What will happen where, and at what times? How do we make sure that it is attractive to visit all the places to visit at SKREI (Otolitten, Lofoten Aquarium, Galleri Espolin, Lofotmuseet)? In short: what do we do to facilitate good experiences for our guests?

Museum Nord’s Head of Communications Hege Anita Eilertsen gave a presentation that talked about Museum Nord’s purpose and work, as well as about opportunities related to SKREI.

In addition, there were many other good speakers. You can read the full program for the Lofoten Conference here.

Political debates and workshops

In addition to the speakers’ presentations, there was room for several political debates. Exciting issues were highlighted and answered.

Presenter John-Inge Johansen challenged, among other things, to a debate on the role of rural areas in the green transition. How do we succeed with the energy transition? What role should local businesses have? Do we have the tools needed? And are the measures allowed to work long enough?

Two eventful days

Day 2 of the Lofoten Conference was led by Kjersti T. Busch, general manager of the knowledge company SALT Lofoten AS. She invited to a groundbreaking exchange of experience on the energy and technology transition that Lofoten is also in the middle of.

We heard “perspectives on Lofoten seen from the Nordic region and the island community of Gotland (Meit Fohlin, Political leader (S) in Gotland Region), about “Will 2025 be good? And, should we let the Swedes fix the energy transition? (Erlend Bullvåg, CEO of Kunnskapsparken Bodø). Furthermore, the participants gained insight into “Circular economy – A driver for profitability and competitiveness!” (Anders Waage Nilsen, Circular Strategist and co-owner of Reddel)

We thank you for two days with a lot of interesting information, opportunities to present ourselves and our work, the opportunity to exchange experiences and new acquaintances at the Lofoten Conference 2025.