Ivar Hoff leaving Bangkok end of April
After five years at tremendous pace and with extraordinary results, Ivar Hoff, regional head of the Norwegian Trade Council since 2002, leaves his Bangkok base, and returns to new adventures in the Norwegian Mountains.
27.04.2004 | news Knud Brix
The climate was freezing cold in Bangkok when Ivar Hoff arrived in June 1999. The economical climate, that is.
The burst of the Asian Tiger-economies and the following economical crisis had frozen new investments, and certainly put a damper on the Norwegian activities in the region. Furthermore there had been no head of the commercial section at the Embassy in Bangkok for more than two years.
“We basically had to start from scratch,” Ivar Hoff remembers with a wry smile, when ScandAsia met him at his office at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Bangkok.
Now five years later, the economical climate in the region has once again heated up, and looking back, 50-year-old Hoff can note some extraordinary good results for Norwegian trade and a remarkable management period.
His first hard assignment was the bilateral negotiations between Norway and Thailand in 1999 concerning the import duty on Norwegian salmon.
Salmon was considered a luxury good and had a tariff if 60% which limited the market.
“We originally wanted salmon to be totally tax free, but ended up with a 5% duty,” Ivar remembers.
Then the path was clear and Ivar Hoff and his staff started promoting salmon, on behalf of The Norwegian Seafood Council, to the Thais.
In five years the export has skyrocketed 747 percent, from 468 tons in 1999 to 3,500 tons in 2003.
Sales promotion, exhibitions, fairs and training Thai chefs and supermarkets hove to use salmon, achieved these results.
“I think there is still a great future for the Norwegian salmon market in Thailand. The trend with focus on Japanese food like sushi is evolving rapidly. And salmon is also great for many Thai dishes,” says Ivar. “My favourite is to make it the Indian way, Tandoori salmon.”
Also many other sides of the Thai Norwegian trade have evolved over the last few years, and Ivar is very optimistic for the future.
In February Ivar Hoff and his team already had 70 percent of the total budget for 2004 covered, so when his successor takes over in May, the whole budget is likely to already be fulfilled.
“We have been good on the consultative part, and I wouldn’t be surprised if 2004 broke all records,” says the optimistic director.
When he first came to Bangkok, Ivar Hoff was head of the local branch of The Norwegian Trade Council, covering Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, but since May 2002, he has been ahead of the South East Asia hub, with responsibility of all the countries in the region, plus Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.
In January 2004 the organisation changed name into Innovation Norway, after the uniting of the Norwegian Trade Council, Norwegian Tourist Board, Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund (SND) and the Govt. Consultative Office for Inventors, still with Ivar Hoff behind the rudder in SEA.
On the first of May, only four days after Ivar Hoff leaves Bangkok, he will start a new life in Trysil, where he will be sales and marketing director at the Trysil Ski and Golf Resort. He recently bought an apartment in Oslo with his wife Eirin, who works for the Norwegian aid programme NORAD, and will be commuting on weekly basis to his new job in the Norwegian mountains.
“It will only take me two and a half hour to get there and that’s nothing compared to be stocked in the Bangkok traffic,”
“I’m looking forward to working in a private company again. I find the Trysil Group very interesting. People only think of it as a mountain and a ski hill, but it is actually also a group with a NOK 220 million turnover and a sale of 850,000 lift cards last year, and a variety of outdoor both Summer and Winter. I hope to contribute with my experience from 28 years in sales and marketing, since 70 percent of the visitors are non Norwegians,” Ivar Hoff explains, and remarks that he is looking forward to going back to travel business, where he worked as head of the Norwegian tourist Board in Denmark from 1993 to 1999.
“I know a lot of travel operators from my time in the tourist department in Copenhagen. Many of them have called me and welcomed me back in the business.”
In retrospect Ivar Hoff has made his visible mark on the Thai Norwegian trade, but Asia has also made its mark on Ivar Hoff.
“Five years in Asia has given me a lot of things among them a lot of lifetime friends and I think I have developed as a person. Apart from life experience it has made me more humble, and changed my approach on marketing a little. I used to be very aggressive in marketing, but the Thai culture has taught me how far you can come with politeness. I think I have become a more diplomatic person.”
| On the first of May, only four days after Ivar Hoff leaves Bangkok, he will start a new life in Trysil, where he will be sales and marketing director at the Trysil Ski and Golf Resort.
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