Planning, Forethought and Vision in Icelandic Tourism

At the invitation of the Icelandic Tourist Board Julie gave a keynote paper at their conference Planning, Forethought and Vision in Icelandic Tourism, held in Selfoss this October. The one-day conference tackled the question of how to balance Iceland’s success in growing its tourist numbers with its long-term sustainability, and was a stimulating and well-supported event, drawing on both international and local Icelandic experience.

Iceland’s tourism has a strong record in the areas of natural resource management and community based tourism development, and it was great to have the opportunity to meet anthropologists already working in those fields in Iceland. In her paper Geological time, social time, and political time – the ‘long term’ in tourism destinations Julie highlighted the broader contribution anthropology can make to understanding and managing the complex relationship between markets, product, landscape, and social and political change.