PHOTO: Bergen, Norway’s Old Wharf hails back to the Hanseatic League that paved the way for Baltic Sea partnership’s between countries. Photos courtesy of Scandinavian Tourist Boards

It’s one of the peculiarities of destination marketing that the country or countries you’re competing against in one market may be your closest allies in another. So it is for the Scandinavian countries. While Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden compete mightily against each other in short-haul European markets close to home, when it comes to a long-haul market like the U.S., the Nordic destinations do better working as a unit under the unifying brand of Scandinavia. In the partnership’s latest permutation, four countries are joining hands with Travel Agent Academy [www.travelagentacademy.com], a division of Travalliance like TravelPulse, to offer agents a way to become specialists in the region.

The Scandinavia Specialist program puts a single brand on four different destinations for its agent students. “All of our research shows that the Scandinavian brand transcends the power of all of our individual brands,” said Helena Niskanen, Scandinavian Tourism president and Visit Finland’s marketing representative in New York. “So it just makes sense to work together here. Besides, U.S. tour operators always put more than one Scandinavian country on their packages in the region.”

Back in 1996, the countries came together to house their various tourist offices in New York under the Scandinavia Tourist Boards shingle at 655 Third Avenue. The group incorporated as Scandinavian Tourism Inc. The new Scandinavia Specialist program further establishes the bond.

“We hope to sign up between 1,000 and 1,500 agents in the first 18 months,” said Walter DeMirci, project manager travel trade, Scandinavia Tourist Boards. Agent education is especially important to a region that sees 69 percent of its bookings come through agents. Only Norway, thanks to the cruises of its fjords, has succeeded in consistently getting visitors beyond the gateway capitals.

If visitors finally come to the region with a truer understanding of its diversity, the feeling is they will explore it more thoroughly, getting beyond Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, and Stockholm. Agents are a way to distribute that knowledge. Most of the questions that agents have about Scandinavia concern such logistical details as connectivity and currency. But there’s clearly plenty that people don’t know about a region with incredible natural resources, a true indigenous European culture in the Sami and 33 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

“For member agents it will be a high-value program,” said DeMirci. “We’ll be doing plenty of sales calls and training sessions to back up that original training, in person and by webinar. In the training we’ll include important partners such as tour operators and airlines like SAS and Norwegian.” This coming Oct. 23, the four countries will bring together 35 tour operators and a host of travel agents for the annual Scandinavia Workshop that will be held in New York. The countries will also send out 10 trade-oriented Scandinavia newsletters per year to member agents and one newsletter with more of a consumer orientation.

The training program will become increasingly more sophisticated across its three phases of development. “As we move deeper and deeper into the course, the information will get more nuanced and hit on specialist education focused on such issues as developing niches like culinary travel and LGBT.

“We are reaching experienced travelers,” said Niskanen. “These people have already been to England, Italy and France and so they’re pretty sophisticated. Therefore agents need to be prepared to handle them efficiently. This course will be a big help. In its first phase the free course will feature four modules.”

The multi-destinational partnership also allows the countries to create routes that address the regional destination. “Yes, we are looking at circuits that bring together two, three and four countries,” said Niskanen. “You might enter through Helsinki and exit from Copenhagen, for instance.” The partnership is now working closely with ACP Rail to help assemble multi-national Scandinavian rail packages.

It’s always wisest to listen to what the market itself tells you, and clearly Americans see Scandinavia as a unified entity. Though Finland is not technically in Scandinavia, it fits seamlessly into the region as a complimentary destination for long-haul travelers. There has never been more lift from the U.S. to Scandinavia than there is right now thanks to such carriers as Delta, Finnair, Iceland Air, Norwegian, SAS and United.

PHOTOS: (Above) The Northern Lights embody the mystic frontier of Arctic Europe. (Below) Helsinki’s Market Square is an ideal peoplewatching thoroughfare.