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Organization

The Scenic Routes Section

Norwegian Scenic Routes is a nationwide project with the Director General of the NPRA as the owner of the attraction. The day-to-day work is handled by the Norwegian Scenic Routes Section of the division for Transport and Society in the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA). The Section develops, maintains and promotes the Scenic Routes attraction. It is located at Lillehammer, while a few employees work in Western and Northern Norway.

The NPRA has established three councils with external participants to ensure that the Scenic Routes tourist attraction is of high quality:

  • An Architecture Council that contributes to the high quality of viewpoints and picnic areas and provides professional assessments to ensure that Norwegian Scenic Routes remain a unique attraction. One architect, one landscaping architect and one artist participate in the Architecture Council.
  • A designated arts curator, with assistance from an Arts Council, to ensure that art installations along Norwegian Scenic Routes are of high international quality. 

  • A Scenic Routes Forum aiming to present the Scenic Routes initiative within and outside of its members’ own organisations, and to ensure that Scenic Routes are used actively as a policy instrument in line with the purpose of the initiative. The Forum advises the Norwegian Public Roads Administration on matters of principle for Norwegian tourism concerning Norwegian Scenic Routes, and oversees that the long-term Scenic Routes work is continued as intended. The Forum consists of representatives from Norwegian tourism (Innovation Norway, Norwegian Tourism Partners, Virke Reiseliv, Fjord Norway, Visit Northern Norway, Visit Northwest, Historic Hotels and Restaurants, and Fjord Tours Group).

Since the goal is to create an attraction with architecture and art of international standard, highly specialised experts are required for planning, quality assurance and implementation. This is solved by involving the most prominent professionals in the country, from the NPRA as well as from external professional communities.

The Scenic Routes work involves conferring with experts from fields such as architecture and landscape architecture, arts, roads and traffic, construction technology, land acquisition, tourism, graphic design, web design, planning and processing, and business consultancy.