Tourism Push: Norway Puts Its Public Restrooms in the Spotlight

Norwegian travelers and tourists now have a new marketing tool to consider: the country's public toilets. The state-run tourism agency, Visit Norway, launched a campaign this week featuring the nation's most architecturally distinct restrooms. This move follows remarks made by U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month.

Trump spoke at a political rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday ahead of U.S. midterm elections. He told the crowd, "Norway has become a shithouse country, actually." The president has long expressed interest in winning the Nobel Peace Prize. His frustration with the Norwegian Nobel Committee intensified after the committee awarded the 2026 peace prize to international jurist Navi Pillay earlier this month.

Visit Norway responded by releasing a guide titled "Norway makes shithouses great again." The agency's social media post acknowledged the president's comments directly. "So, we heard some noise about ‘s..house country,'" the agency wrote. It added that the country possesses some of the world's most beautiful and spectacular toilets. The campaign went viral within days of its release.

The featured facilities offer views of fjords, mountains, and the Northern Lights. The Stegastein viewpoint toilet sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Aurlandsfjord. It features a large window that allows users to see outside while preventing passersby from looking in. The design firm DesignCurial ranked this restroom number one on its list of the world's 10 best public toilets in 2015. Another featured facility is the Gulldassen, or Golden Toilet, located on Senja Island. Built in 2014, the triangular structure serves as a popular stop for visitors.

Evgenia Egorova, the social media lead for Visit Norway, told The Associated Press that her team created similar content for World Toilet Day, which is scheduled for November 19. She noted that the team was happy to repurpose the material for this new campaign. Egorova said the public reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. "When life gives you lemons or quotes like this, you just do the lemonade and all the viral content," she said.

Trump is not new to using the term "shithole" to describe countries. In 2018, he referred to Haiti and African nations with similar language during a discussion about immigration. At that time, he said he preferred immigrants from countries like Norway. His relationship with Oslo has grown more strained since then, largely due to disagreements over the Nobel Peace Prize.

The focus on golden toilets also recalls past artistic jabs at the president. Earlier this year, a resistance art group installed a golden toilet on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to protest White House renovations. In 2017, the Guggenheim Museum offered to lend an 18-karat gold toilet titled "America" for the White House private quarters. The artwork, by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was later displayed at Blenheim Palace in the United Kingdom. Thieves stole the latrine in 2019. Two of the thieves were convicted last year, though the gold toilet has never been recovered.

The next major event for the agency's team is World Toilet Day on November 19. The campaign continues to circulate on social media platforms as the U.S. midterm election season progresses.