Last month, Sweden set up a new phone number called “The Swedish
Number.” Call it and a Swede, any Swede, will answer to talk to you about their
country.
It was started as something of a gimmick by the Swedish
Tourist Association. The gimmick caught on, and, to date, more than 160,000
people have called.
I’m responsible for a few of those calls.
“Random Swede answering,” said Christer Blom, picking up the
phone. Blom is a 53-year-old software developer who lives in the Swedish
countryside about 100 miles west of Stockholm. He volunteered to field calls
from people across the globe two weeks ago.
“I just thought it would be a nice thing to do,” he said.
About a third of the calls to The Swedish Number originate
from the United States. The rest are a mix from across the globe. Blom said
some people want travel tips; lots call to talk about politics; others want to
talk about, well, anything.
“The call before you, the first question was: What’s your
favorite dessert?” said Blom. “I had to think a while, but this time of year
it’s strawberry with some cream. Of course it’s a seasonal dessert. It’s nice.”
You might be thinking: How does learning about Blom’s
favorite summertime dessert promote travel to Sweden? Jenny Engström with the
Swedish Tourist Association said the idea was, first and foremost, to create a
genuine interaction.
“What I think is the cool thing about this is that it’s a
phone call between two people,” said Engström. “In this digital world we’re
living in, you’re not able to hear people’s voices.”
The Swedish Tourist Association, a nonprofit member organization
independent of the Swedish government, wants those voices speaking for their
country to be unfiltered. “To let the people who live here promote Sweden,
instead of someone in a marketing firm telling you where to go or what to do,”
Engström said.
Engström said they were hoping for 2,500 Swedish volunteers
to answer their phones; they’ve gotten 30,000, including Sweden’s prime
minister.
That’s putting a lot of faith in average, ordinary citizens
to market your country. In the calls I made, everybody was off-the-charts
friendly.
Medical student Lisa Haern greeted me with an enthusiastic
“Hi!” from Stockholm, taking a break from the books. She said she downloaded an
app to talk to people like me. I asked if the Swedish Tourist Association wants
her to promote anything or if she has any bullet points to follow.
“No. There’s no information,” said Haern. “It’s just, OK,
enter your number, and that was it. You’re now logged in and you can answer for
Sweden, the Swedish number.”
The Swedish Number was also introduced to mark 250 years
since Sweden became the first country to abolish censorship. I had little doubt
that the Swedes I was speaking with were free to say or do whatever they
wanted, especially when Alexander Larsson, a college student, put me on hold.
He did come back quickly and we had a nice conversation. He
gave me a few travel tips, then we ended up talking about politics and racism
in his country. He said most of his conversations have nothing to do with
Sweden at all.
“Some people just call because they’re lonely, I figure,”
Larsson said. “So they just want to talk because they have no one else to talk
to, I guess.”
Did my phone calls make me want to visit Sweden again?
A little.
Did they make me think more highly of the place and the
Swedish people?
No question.
