Mobility Patterns and Sustainable Tourism:
Planning and Managing Tourism in Iceland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33112/arctour.2.2Keywords:
Sustainable tourism, Mobility, Time and space, Seasonality, IcelandAbstract
Tourism in Iceland has experienced significant changes in the past decade. Visitor numbers increased from 459,000 in 2010 to 2.3 million in 2018. However, there was a 14% decrease in visitor numbers between 2018 and 2019, and in 2020, the visitor numbers collapsed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effect of the pandemic started to decrease in spring 2022 as visitors returned.
The great increase from 2010 to 2018 prompted Icelandic authorities to focus on sustainable tourism management in their policymaking. The focus has been on distributing the flow of visitors and associated revenues more evenly across regions, while protecting the main tourist attraction: nature, as well as nature-based destinations. Knowledge of mobility patterns at different scales is crucial for the sustainable development and management of tourism. This study analyses mobility patterns in Iceland through examining visitor numbers at 18 nature-based destinations scattered around the country. The mobility patterns are then related to the sustainable tourism objectives of the Icelandic tourism authorities.
The results indicate that the south and southwest region of Iceland is more visited and exhibits less seasonality than other regions of the country. Seasonality has decreased in all regions but not to the same extent as in the south and southwest, the area that includes both the main gateway, Keflavik International Airport, and the capital city of Reykjavík, which often serves as a basecamp for natural attractions. When planning for and managing sustainable tourism in Iceland, it is crucial to know the number of visitors at nature-based destinations, as these numbers are key for analyzing mobility patterns.
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