Session on Rural Tourism Routes

The ITRC hosted a session on research on Rural Tourism Routes at the Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research.

The session, organised by Þórný Barðadóttir and Eyrún Jenný Bjarnadóttir, researchers at the ITRC, was titled "Pushing or pulling the lot. Knowledge creation on drive tourism in rural areas". It featured six presentations, highlighting the diverse roles and impacts of roads and tourism routes in rural tourism contexts:

• Pushing and pulling: Research on rural drive tourism. Þórný Barðadóttir and Eyrún Jenný Bjarnadóttir
• Chronotopies of drive tourism through Location-based Social Networks. Carlos Ferreira, Jorge Rocha and Luis Encalada Abarca
• Multipurpose rural roads – user’s conflicts and benefits. Ingibjörg Sigurðardóttir
• Ticked off the bucket list? Exploring the North Coast 500's Impact on the Visitor Experience in the Northern Highlands of Scotland. Tarja Salmela
• Mobile heritage tourism with vintage cars and vintage drivers. Reidar J. Mykletun
• Chinese Tourist Road Travel in Iceland. Mou Zhying and Anna Karlsdóttir

In addition, the ITRC participated in two other sessions at the conference. In one of them, research findings on the social impacts of tourism were presented where Georgette Leah Burns, Eyrún Jenný Bjarnadóttir, Guðrún Helgadóttir and Guðrún Þóra Gunnarsdóttir presented the paper Keeping calm on the tourism rollercoaster: Resident attitudes and perceptions.

In the other, Magnfríður Birnu Júlíusdóttir delivered a presentation on the experiences of migrant workers in tourism with sexual harassment. Eyrún has worked on the research project on behalf of the ITRC in collaboration with Magnfríður.

The Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research is an annual conference, rotating among the five Nordic countries. This year the conference took place in Stavanger, Norway September 18-20.

Some photos from Stavanger: