Tag Archives: Iceland

Doing It Better: Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Iceland

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[Above, the Snaefell shield volcano rises above a beach. Its capping glacier, Snaefellsjokull, is the centerpiece of its namesake national park at the far western end of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. [Photo courtesy of Visit Iceland]

On a long, skinny Icelandic peninsula, five small municipalities have teamed up to create a modest destination stewardship council and supporting network. Tiffany Chan, with Jonathan Tourtellot, explores the Snæfellsnes model of sustainable collaboration – a work in progress that has already earned a platinum sustainability rating.

A Council-and-Network Approach to Destination Stewardship

Iceland’s narrow Snæfellsnes peninsula pokes out 90km westward into the far North Atlantic from a point partway between Reykjavík and Vestfirðir (the Western Fjords). Its wild and diverse landscapes offer a blend of culture, nature, and history – waterfalls and lava fields, black and white sand beaches, an archeological site, a glacier-capped strato-volcano in Snaefellsjokull National Park, and rich cultural heritage woven into Icelandic folklore and history. The peninsula is a two-hour drive north of Reykjavík, putting it within day-trip range of tourists based in Iceland’s capital city.

Lots of tourists.

Iceland, “Land of Fire and Ice,” draws visitors from around the globe to observe the country’s gleaming glaciers, active volcanoes, erupting geysers, and cascading waterfalls. They come to hike in Icelandic parks and admire the dance of the Northern Lights. However, mass tourism did not reach this island nation until the last decade. According to the Icelandic Tourist Board, Iceland received just under half a million foreign visitors in 2010 – still larger than the country’s population of about 330,000. Thereafter, growth of foreign overnight visitors increased annually, peaking at a high of 2.3 million in 2018 and around 2 million in 2019, right before the global pandemic – almost seven times the number of inhabitants. Iceland’s overtourism can contribute to ecological damage of the wild landscapes that visitors hope to see. Further, coachloads of tourists are not conducive to the wilderness experience itself.

The dramatic peak of Kirkjufell rises above the Kirkjufellsfoss waterfall, a location on the northern side of the peninsula made popular by the influence of Instagram. [Photo courtesy of Visit Iceland]

To disperse the masses, Iceland encourages visitors to explore more of the country, to go beyond Reykjavik and nearby day trips. Traveling slower and staying longer in each region is the responsibility of the traveller, but creating incentives to do so, and do so sustainably, fall to the destination itself. Snæfellsnes (“snow mountain peninsula”) has been at the forefront of sustainable destination development in Iceland. Certified by EarthCheck under Global Sustainable Tourism Council criteria, this regional standout employs a collaborative approach to sustainable tourism and destination stewardship.

Sustainability is Rooted in Nature

A significant portion of the Snæfellsnes population still lives on small farms. [Photo courtesy of Visit Iceland]

Unsurprisingly, the rapid growth in number of visitors through 2019 has affected Snæfellsnes. However, environmental protection and social responsibility are deeply rooted in this region of Iceland. Fishing is a very rich part of their cultural heritage. Residents relied on the fishing industry until tourism took over a couple of decades ago. The five Snæfellsnes municipalities, each different in size, form a small and connected community of less than 4000 residents. While most residents live in the towns, some 200-300 continue to live on farms, including one of the municipal mayors.

Overall, Snæfellsnes has taken a collaborative approach to various areas of sustainable development, including creation of Snæfellsnes Regional Park. The regional park was founded in 2014 by the five municipalities, nongovernment organizations, and other stakeholders to channel cooperation and share the area’s unique attractions with visitors and residents alike.

Additionally, for Snæfellsnes, destination certification was a step towards meeting sustainability goals. Snæfellsnes was the first European destination to receive an EarthCheck certification, in 2008. The certification program has been an effective project, keeping the environment, society and economy top of mind. According to the 10-year review on Snæfellsnes as an EarthCheck Destination, waste in landfills has been reduced by almost half, greenhouse gas emissions and energy performance are much improved, and the development of environmental programs and social initiatives have increased. Snæfellsnes Peninsula is now a certified platinum destination under the EarthCheck system.

Collaborative Governance

Collaboration in Snæfellsnes is based on an informal network of overlapping organizations.
• Byggðasamlag Snæfellinga is the destination stewardship council, made up of mayors from each of the five municipalities –- Snaefellsbaer, Helgafellssveit, Grundarfjörður, Stykkishólmur, and Eyjaog Miklaholtshreppur.
• Natturustofa Vesturands (the West Iceland Nature Research Center) manages Umhverfisvottun Snæfellsness (the Snæfellsnes Sustainability Program).
• The Snæfellsnes Regional Park, West Iceland Marketing, tourism unions, and the private sector are all involved in sustainable development as well.

Within this web of stakeholders, two particular individuals drive the sustainability effort in Snæfellsnes. Guðrún Magnea Magnúsdóttir, at the West Iceland Nature Research Center, is the Sustainability Program Manager. She coordinates sustainability programs and projects, including the EarthCheck Certification. Ragnhildur Sigurðardóttir, the Regional Park Manager, is equally involved in spearheading sustainability initiatives, as well as regional planning.

The Snæfellsnes EarthCheck Green Team celebrates 13 consecutive years of certification. [Photo courtesy of Guðrún Magnea Magnúsdóttir]

Although several tourism councils and stakeholders make up this informal network, they all share common goals when it comes to the future of Snæfellsnes. To address issues in the region, meetings are called, often in neighboring farms. The community comes together, and the discussions begin. As Ragnhildur puts it, “the beauty of our work is cooperation. ‘Þetta reddast’ is a common slogan in Iceland, meaning ‘it will work out.’” The community is committed and invested in the sustainable development of Snæfellsnes. Ragnhildur continues: “Those who have moved to Snæfellsnes and are involved with tourism have never seen such strong tourism collaboration in a rural area. This is especially true of those who come from other rural areas. They are impressed with the work that we’ve done.”

Sustainable Management as a Community

Oftentimes, political changes alter the course of sustainability progress. In Snæfellsnes, an election is held every four years. If not re-elected, the mayors all change at the same time, which can delay certain initiatives, but it does not impact the destination management plan in a significant way. However, multi-stakeholder involvement doesn’t come without challenges. Every municipality is different in size, funding and resources, with the smallest being 66 people with a tiny budget. There has been formal and informal dialogue about the potential of combining two municipalities, possibly even all five.

Regardless, sustainable management involves broad cooperation of parties and public participation. Snæfellsnes Regional Park (not to be confused with Snaefellsjokull National Park), is a joint effort by the municipalities and tourism stakeholders. The governing bodies include a Founder’s Council, under which a Steering Group and Working Group work in collaboration. Additional consultants assisted with landscape assessment, regional plan development, and project management.

Sharing a common vision allows for cooperation through environmental conservation and promotion.

Multiple parties are also involved in regional planning. Over 200 people from various groups and stakeholders come together, including the five municipalities, a local planning committee, and a local steering committee. The five municipalities appoint a regional planning committee to overlook zoning under their supervision. Every municipality has an individual plan, which must also align with the regional plan.

The snowy destination of Bjarnafoss receives an environmental award in 2018. [Photo by Heimir Berg]

The municipalities are financially responsible for the social services and schools within their own community but collectively take care of the Visitor Center, the history museum, and the sustainability program, including the EarthCheck Certification.

The regional park is funded by municipalities, the tourism union, the workers union, and farmers associations. Through the regional park, Ragnhildur Sigurðardóttir is responsible for training staff and running the Visitors Center. Guðrún Magnea Magnúsdóttir oversees the EarthCheck Standard and sustainability program, holding courses at the center. The Visitor Center is located at Breiðablik, the entrance to Snæfellsnes. It is open daily and provides tourists with trip planning information to help guide their visit within the region.

Most residents share an understanding that protecting natural resources benefits the entire community, but there are limits. “It would be great to have more happening in the Visitors Center, but once the work has been done, reality hits. You have to hire employees, pay for electricity costs and all that comes with running the center,” says Ragnhildur. “When the five municipalities come together, they also have to consider money that is needed elsewhere, such as building a kindergarten.”

Projects & Activities

The Regional Park is working on two important projects:
• Taking the initial steps for applying to become a UNESCO Biosphere destination.
• Destination branding and marketing under the “Choose or Stay” policy.

Choose or Stay is a national strategy for converting daytrippers from Reykjavík into overnight visitors. In Icelandic it rhymes: veldu eða vertu. It encourages visitors to travel slower, either by choosing just one site for a day trip or staying longer to see more. The approach helps create a circular travel route around Snæfellsnes while avoiding congestion due to large tour buses.

To further disperse tourists, a categorical system was created whereby a list of 28 popular locations is labelled A, B, C or D, based on various risk factors for the environment and the visitors. Visitor-ready locations with appropriate infrastructure in place are labelled A, while B is still in progress, C is a wishlist of places that they want to market to be visitor-ready or at least heading in that direction. D is for sensitive places where they don’t want visitors. This system helps manage the number of people visiting each location. Overall, it is going well and helps manage crowding by spreading people out.

Búðakirkja, the Black Church of Búðir, has become a popular destination for photographers, who travel to the rural southern side of the peninsula to capture its beauty. [Photo courtesy of Visit Iceland]

Measuring Progress in Rural Iceland

When asked how Snæfellsnes measures success, Ragnhildur responded: “We discuss results at our annual meeting. We ask everyone at the meeting for input. We work together and see Snæfellsnes as a whole, which is better when it comes to funding and finishing projects. At the same time, Guðrún and I often reject projects because we have to be selective.”

Additionally, there are plenty of evaluations. Following an action plan of what Guðrún and each municipality is doing, there is an evaluation at the end of the year to discuss how each project will proceed, with environmental and social factors in mind. The EarthCheck certification also requires an annual third-party performance audit. The benefit of being one of two areas in Iceland with certification (the other being the municipalities in the Westfjords), is the joint effort within the entire community. Many decisions in Snæfellsnes are directly linked to being certified, ensuring continued progress toward sustainability.

Commentary

As a council made up of mayors, the Byggðasamlag Snæfellinga seems to serve technically as the core of the informal network of overlapping organizations that address destination stewardship in Snæfellsnes. Threats of overtourism are weighed against a desire to grow.

“Twenty years ago, there was little tourism. Residents lived off the fishing industry, along with farming and agriculture. We are traditional and old fashioned, but we have deep roots. We want new inhabitants and companies to come to Snæfellsnes. This is the luxury of having a low population of residents,” says Ragnhildur.

The Iceland Regional Affairs Conference held in Snæfellsnes in 2018. [Photo courtesy of Guðrún Magnea Magnúsdóttir]

Tourism started to increase about 20 years ago, but more rapidly within the last 10. Sustainability seems to have proceeded as well, if haltingly. Snæfellsnes tourism enterprises that are certified have seen results, such as savings from energy efficiency and other best practices. However, getting business to become certified is a challenge, according to the two managers. Businesses are small and mostly rely on busy summer periods. It is costly and takes time and resources to get certified and audited. Since there is little competition, it is not very compelling.

Economic, cultural, and ecological factors all come into play. “With elections bringing in a new board of municipalities, it is kind of political,” says Guðrún. She lists the major challenges:

  1. Politics
  2. Budgets to finance the program
  3. Mobilizing the community
  4. Reaching out to inform visitors – Mainly because of budget limitations, the villages don’t have the resources, the marketing, the informational signs, nor anyone for managing tourism.

Some say it would make sense for the regional park to manage all of it, but that will take more resources and collaboration. Meanwhile the certification consultant, EarthCheck, provides some measure of continuity, if tipped strongly toward environment over social and cultural sustainability. Snæfellsnes’s current governance arrangement may seem somewhat messy, but the destination is of manageable size, there is broad cultural support for sustainability, and the outlook encouraging. Perhaps that Icelandic aphorism does apply: “It will work out.”

Overtourism, Airbnb, and the Numbers Problem

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[Above: Tourists pack a walkway at China’s Hongcun Village, a World Heritage site. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot]

Airbnb Addresses Overtourism

My Foreword to Airbnb’s recently-released report, Healthy Travel and Healthy Destinations (download it here) sets up some basic issues of destination stewardship and the problem of overtourism. The balance of the report makes Airbnb’s case for its support of sustainable tourism over mass tourism, which you can judge for yourself.

While nonresident units on home-sharing platforms obviously contribute to overtourism disruption in popular city centers, the balance of Airbnb’s effects on destinations may equal or surpass the benefits of conventional tourism, all while dispersing a portion of visitor traffic. Full reveal: Airbnb paid me for the Foreword, but they let me write it the way I wanted, and—barring new information—I stand by its content.

Part of Airbnb’s conundrum stems from its swift evolution, morphing from a true home-sharing platform—i.e., a room in a home or in the mother-in-law unit next door—into one that also lists hosts’ often-empty vacation units and eventually those of commercial “hosts” who buy up and rent out multiple units dedicated only for tourists—not home sharing at all. Each of these rental patterns can have very different impacts on the destination.

Airbnb has at least demonstrated a (sometimes reluctant) willingness to work with communities in coping with overtourism. Meanwhile, other players keep trying to pack in the crowds like commuters on the Tokyo underground. Most concerning are the government and tourist authorities that continue to call for ever more tourist arrivals, as noted in our GWU/Travel Massive webinar held in February.

Last year I addressed overtourism in National Geographic Voices. That platform may be soon replaced, so I repeat the Nat Geo post here, as it ran on 29 October 2017:

Tourism has a numbers problem.

The world’s population explosion has finally arrived. It has manifested itself not in global waves of famine as was feared half a century ago, but in waves of Airbuses, tour buses, and minibuses. Tourists by the millions.

This population explosion overwhelms St Mark’s Square in Venice. It pushes through the streets of Barcelona, angering residents. It forms hours-long queues in China for the cable cars up Mount Huangshan and fills all the lanes in the World Heritage Village of Hongcun. It paves the beaches of the Mediterranean in simmering northern European flesh. In the Louvre it blocks your view of the Mona Lisa with forests of smartphones held high in selfie mode. It pushes through the ruins of Tulum in Mexico with busloads of Spaniards, Americans, Chinese. It even creates traffic jams on the climbing routes up Mount Everest.

It has spawned a new word: Overtourism. Too many tourists.

Taking selfies with the Mona Lisa. Photo: Krista Rossow

Overtourism has been manifesting itself for over two decades in popular countries like Spain, Italy, and France. But somehow the population pressure hit the red zone this year. Says one colleague, “It’s the topic du jour. The phrase is on the lips of every travel expert, every pseudo-expert, and every travel industry opportunist.”

“Too many tourists!”

No surprise. From Barcelona to Venice, from Reykjavik to Santorini, residents have raised a chorus of protest: “TOO MANY TOURISTS!” Plenty of visitors chime in: Not what we came for. How can a visitor experience the delights of a foreign city if the streets are packed with thousands—yes, thousands—of cruise-ship passengers and lined with global franchises to cater to them? Serious travelers increasingly dismiss such places—“too touristy.”

Pressed beyond tolerable limits, some destinations are fighting back. Dubrovnik is instituting severe caps on cruise passengers, as is Santorini. Italy’s Cinque Terre is ready to impose quotas on people hiking between the five picturesque villages. The Seychelles wants to limit hotel sizes to protect their reputation as an Indian Ocean paradise.

Yet Some Insist: More Is Better

Despite all this backlash, development bankers, government planners, and tourism ministers—many of them political appointees with little knowledge of sustainable tourism principles—still continue to press for yet more tourists. And boast about it.

Just see what I discovered as I was getting ready for this year’s [2017] international conference of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). It convened a few weeks ago in the cool air of one of the most sparsely populated places on the planet: Chile’s northern Patagonia region of Aysén. Even here, overtourism was the hot-button topic.

Tourists in still-uncrowded (sometimes) Patagonia. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

GSTC’s purpose is to work with governments and companies to help protect both the planet and the delights of travel—a delicate balancing act. In addition to countering such threats as climate change, pollution, habitat loss, and overdevelopment, GSTC now confronts the predictable but long-disregarded threat posed by tourism itself.

I moderated the panel addressing overtourism. To prepare for it, I went online and did a search. It took only 30 minutes to find these statements, all published in the previous week:

  • “Jamaica is on target to hit its record goal of 4.2 million visitors for 2017.”
  • “For 2017, Bali’s foreign arrivals target is an ambitious 6 million.”
  • Peru hopes to “double tourism arrivals to 7 million by 2021.”
  • Vietnam “has set the target of attracting 13 million-15 million foreign visitors…year-on-year growth of 30-50 percent.”
  • Sharjah, U.A.E.: “Draw 10 million visitors a year by 2021.”
  • Maldives: “Tourist arrivals have crossed the one million milestone, on course to reach an ambitious target of 1.5 million.”

And those announcements were issued in just one week!

Quantity, not Quality

For government officials it’s easy to set goals by using the convenient turnstile of a passport check to count international arrivals. It’s more trouble and expense to collect more significant data: How long did visitors stay? What did they do? How much did they spend, on what, and who got the money? How did their presence affect local society, culture, and environment? Or the question rarely asked: How many is too many?

Tourists explore atop Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher. The geopark wants fewer tourists; the county wants more. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

Simply striving for more arrivals leads to tourism quantity over quality. That doesn’t seem to bother national leaders who favor a simplistic “more is better” approach to economics, especially if guided by the World Economic Forum’s very informative but flawed Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report, which among other oddities measures a country’s cultural wealth by number of stadium seats, as noted in a previous post.

Officials and businesses seeking only to boost tourist quantity can undermine the stewards who try to protect destination quality. An official at western Ireland’s popular Cliffs of Moher, for instance, told me that the number of coach tours was getting out of hand, raising fears that the clifftops would gain a reputation as an overcrowded tourist trap. So geopark management wants to raise the fees for buses, but the County Clare government has so far refused. It might hurt their tourist arrivals target.

Could overcrowding be a problem even down here near empty Patagonia? Yes, it could. On my panel, Hernan Mladinic, Executive Director of the Fundación Pumalín, described traffic jams and competition for camping sites in Patagonia’s great national parks. In only three years, camping demand has more than doubled in Chile’s new Pumalín Park. This problem can at least be solved, as there’s room for more campsites.

Tour buses at the Perito Moreno Glacier, Los Glaciares National Park, Argentine Patagonia. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

So the overtourism situation is far from hopeless.  An art-history buff we know spent a week last summer visiting crowd-plagued Florence. She avoided the tourist routes, hit the museums at slack times, stayed in a charming neighborhood across the river, and had a great time. Fine, but overtourism is a bullet one should not have to dodge. Its negative impacts on Florence and many Florentines are undeniable.

Population + Technology + Money = Boom!

The tourism explosion is due not just to more people, but more people with money. A significant portion of the Earth’s population has grown more affluent—think India, China, Brazil, among many others—and travel technology from jumbo jets to the sharing economy has grown cheaper, bigger, and faster. The result: According to figures from the United Nations World Tourism Organization, international tourism has grown 40 fold since commercial jet traffic began some six decades ago. The places that these people visit, however—the museums, the archaeological ruins, the natural attractions, the narrow medieval streets of historic cities—are still the same physical size. These cups runneth over, as I somewhat clumsily demonstrated for the Reinvent project (3:00 on the video) earlier this year.

That means that if there were, say, five people admiring a painting at a given time back in 1960, there are 200 trying to see it today. Unpleasant, and ultimately unsustainable. Last year saw more than 1.2 billion international arrivals. By 2050, according to David Scowsill, former head of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), some 3 billion people will be affluent enough to make such trips.

Overtourism Has Come to My Beloved Iceland.

Since my first visit in the 1970s, I’ve loved Iceland for its wide views, its unique culture, its geological wonders, and, well, its freedom from crowds. The saddest compliment I ever received was from a long-time friend in Reykjavik, where tourists now seem to rule the downtown throughout summer. “Everything that you said would happen,” she told me, “has happened.” She was wrong actually; while I had warned of the changes that high-volume tourism could bring to Iceland, I never imaged just how much volume. According to a Skift report, almost half a million tourists visited Iceland in 2010, far exceeding the national population of 330,000. That was then. Now quintuple it: Some 2.5 million tourists are expected to have visited this year.

Tourists visit Skógafoss waterfall in southern Iceland. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

Her husband, a former captain with Icelandair, tried to talk his old employer into providing passage for me to visit and speak about the value of improving the quality of tourism rather than boosting the quantity. He didn’t get far. The response was along the lines of “Are you crazy? You want us to bring a guy here to argue for fewer tourists?” Airlines like to add more planes and fill more seats.

Thus the tourism industry is both victim and vector of overtourism. Even as some hotels and tour operators seek ways to avoid crowding, other elements of the industry that benefit from high volume—cruise ships, airlines, taxi services—continue to encourage tourism quantity over quality. That dissuades the true travelers, who don’t clog the streets for a couple of hours just to take some selfies, buy a T-shirt made in some other country, and then go back to the ship for dinner.

Solutions, or stop-gaps?

The good news, if long overdue, is that tourism media now brim with opinions on how to deal with overtourism.

Pollock is on to something. Most of those overtourism recommendations merely mitigate the problem. The population explosion has already happened. The term “overtourism” may lose its cachet from overuse, but the problem is here for generations. It cannot be solved until world leaders face a simple geometric reality:

It is impossible to pack infinitely growing
numbers of tourists into finite spaces.

So what to do? A world of more than 7 billion people requires rethinking tourism, namely:

  1. Change the prevailing paradigm: More tourism is not necessarily better. Better tourism is better.
  2. Governments and industry should therefore abolish the practice of setting tourism goals based only on arrivals.
  3. Instead, incentivize longer stays and discourage hit-and-run, selfie-stick tourism.
  4. To help do that, destination stakeholders should form stewardship councils that help government and industry plan according to limits of acceptable change.

Who’s a stakeholder? You are.

If you are a thoughtful traveler, voice your opinion and vote with your wallet. Spend your money on destinations that take care of themselves, and on businesses that help them do it.

If you are a resident, team up with your neighbors and civic groups to take charge of how tourism is managed there. If you don’t, someone else will. With their own interests in mind, not yours.

That’s how overtourism gets started.

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For more on overtourism, watch my February 2018 webinar, conducted in cooperation with the George Washington University and Travel Massive.