Research grant on rural drive tourism and tourist routes

©Þórný Barðadóttir 2022

The ITRC has been awarded grant from the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration’s research fund, for research project on drive tourism and tourist routes in rural  areas.

The research, titled Drive Tourism off-the-beaten track, aims to capture the effect of tourist routes and road condition on tourist travel in rural areas. The research takes core in the concepts of Drive Tourism, Travel Routes and Path Dependency. Its assumption is the role of transport systems in tourism mobilities flows and path dependency is both tourist travel and state infrastructure investments.

The research, conducted through mixed methods of survey, interviews and media content analysis, is directed at tourist travels on the first branded Icelandic tourist route, the Arctic Coast way, North Iceland. The research focus is on two of its most rural areas, Vatnsnes on the route’s northwest end and Melrakkaslétta in its northeastern part.

The research will be conducted in the summer and autumn of 2024.