Tourism Law in Europe

3 3. Institutional Organisation There is no tourist minster in Sweden. The ministry of Trade is the ministry in charge of tourism. However, several other ministries are involved with tourism in its broad sense, since tourism involves several issues that falls under the responsibilities of other ministries, such as transport of passengers, environment, consumer rights etc. The Ministry of Trade decides on the national strategy for Swedish tourism. The ministry has set up a company, Visit Sweden AB, with the objective to market Sweden as a destination. Visit Sweden AB works in close connection with local and regional tourist offices and the trade associations. The Swedish Consumer Agency has an important function within the travel sector. The agency is national enforcement body for many of the areas involving consumer rights, such as package travel and passenger rights. There are a lot of agreements between the agency regarding general terms and conditions for different services sold to consumers, for example camping, car rental etc. Sweden is divided into 21 counties. Each county has its own County Administrative Board, which works as the authority in charge of the region when it comes to environment, certain licensing issues etc. The County Administrative Board executes together with the local authorities the national strategy decided by the Ministry of Trade. Most cities, or in some cases regions, has set up Local Tourist Offices , for example Visit Stockholm. The tourist offices main purpose is to market the city or region, domestic and abroad. The tourist offices often work in close connection with the local companies within the tourism sector. Some of these tourist offices act as travel agents and have set up booking services for accommodation and other activities within their region. 4. Accommodation 4.1. Hotel Anyone that wants to conduct hotel- or pension business in Sweden, needs to apply for a permit 4 . Hotel- or pension business is defined as professional business for the purpose of providing temporary furnished accommodation. The permit is given by the local police 4 Lag (1966:742) om hotell- och pensionatrörelse.