Tourism gentrification in Nordic cities: unpacking tourism-induced displacement of shops in Reykjavík

• Main Author: Mermet, Anne-Cécile
• Other Authors: MÉDIATIONS - Sciences des lieux, sciences des liens, Sorbonne Université (SU), University of Malmö
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; Iceland; Reykjavík
• Online Access: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04138576

This presentation aims to explore tourism-induced processes of displacement in Nordic cities through the study of tourism gentrification processes in Reykjavík (Iceland). Iceland has indeed witnessed a significant tourism boom in the last decade (from 500 000 tourists in 2008 to more than 2.3 million in 2018). As a result, tourism has been a major driver in the contemporary transformation of Reykjavík with the construction of dozens of new hotels (Mermet, 2015), the conversion of thousands of apartments into tourist rentals (Elíasson & Ragnarsson, 2018; Mermet, 2017), or the transformation of the local retail structure. Like other popular tourist destinations such as Barcelona or Lisbon, Reykjavík is therefore going through a process of tourism gentrification. Tourism gentrification has recently been identified as one of the main battlefronts of gentrification in contemporary cities (Cócola Gant, 2016). There is now a significant body of academic work demonstrating how tourism produces direct and indirect displacement of long-term inhabitants. Existing research has shown that tourism can lead to direct forms of displacement through the transformation of the built environment into tourism amenities or through the transformation of housing into short-term rentals with platforms such as Airbnb. Tourism can also produce indirect forms of displacement, by disrupting local people’s sense of place (noise, overcrowding, cleanliness, etc.) (López‐Gay et al., 2021), but also by changing the supply of local services that caters more to tourists than to locals (Blázquez-Salom et al., 2019). Thus, as Cocola-Gant points out, the fact that tourism-induced displacement is both residential and commercial. However, while the emerging literature on this topic has mainly focused on tourism-driven residential displacement, commercial displacement remains poorly understood. Research is therefore needed to investigate how tourism-induced commercial displacement works. Furthermore, the existing literature on tourism gentrification ...