Tourism Industry Attitudes towards National Parks and Wilderness: A Case Study from the Icelandic Central Highlands

National parks serve a dual purpose: they aim to protect pristine nature and they are intended to facilitate visitation and provide necessary services. However, as visitation increases, it becomes challenging to establish a balance between visitation and the preservation of nature. This paper aims t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land
Main Authors: Anna Dóra Sæþórsdóttir, Margrét Wendt, Rannveig Ólafsdóttir
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022
Subjects:
S
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/land11112066
https://doaj.org/article/28a0ed63dc6b4207a59003706b693227
Description
Summary:National parks serve a dual purpose: they aim to protect pristine nature and they are intended to facilitate visitation and provide necessary services. However, as visitation increases, it becomes challenging to establish a balance between visitation and the preservation of nature. This paper aims to examine the attitudes of tourism service providers in Iceland towards a proposed national park in the Central Highlands of Iceland, where pristine nature and wilderness are the main attraction, as well as the grounds for conservation. A mixed methodological approach was applied with an online questionnaire survey among all day-tour operators and travel agencies in Iceland, along with 48 semi-structured interviews as follow-up for a deeper understanding. In total, 382 companies answered the online survey, representing a 40% response rate. The results demonstrate that there are mixed opinions on whether the establishment of a national park is the best way to maintain the qualities of the area, with various arguments for and against the national park. Nevertheless, most tourism service providers want to have a say in its governance. It is however important to remember that the tourism industry exploits nature as a market-driven commodity, as its voice must always be evaluated in light of this.