NS34 Session 16

 

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Title: A frightening friendship: Considering collaborations between cultural institutions and the tourism industry. 

Organisers: Guðrún Dröfn Whitehead

Affiliation: University of Iceland

 

Description

This session will consider the global tourism growth and its effects cultural sustainability and heritage management. In the context of museum work that means reducing risk of potential damage to protected museum buildings (in Iceland, for example, turf houses), landscapes and objects, increased operating costs which come with increased tourism which require more staff, improved infrastructure (such as parking lots and toilet facilities), engagement with marketing, interpretations in different languages in exhibitions and more.

As heritage becomes commodified to serve the needs of the tourism industry, local public museums become fearful that their active participation could be in direct contrast to the foundations of museum work, to be non-profit and in service of society. In Iceland, for example, the local Museum Act 141/2011, states that the purpose of museums is to preserve Icelandic cultural and natural heritage and pass it on “unscathed to future generations”. They are not for profit, but in service of society and are to increase “people’s quality of life”. How can that be achieved within the realm of a for-profit, mostly privates local tourism industry? Is there a potential for public museums to lose their professional and cultural integrity? In what way can cultural sustainability be considered when developing tourism policy and developments?

This proposed session is partly based on the organiser’s ongoing research and engages with broader academic and professional discussions on collaborations between museums and other cultural institutions and the local tourism industry. It will be a paper session, bringing together experts working within the tourism industry and museums, as well as academics focusing on the role of museums (private and public) within tourism. The hope is to create an academic and practical discussions of cultural sustainability and heritage commodification, and to consider the benefits of increased collaborations between the two sectors, public museums and tourism and to focus on the mounting tension between not-for-profit and for-profit stakeholders within cultural tourism. Finally, to consider how these collaborations might provide all participating agencies with the opportunity to become an active agent for good, in a changing world.

 

Abstracts

Title: Strengthening the Foundations: How to Increase Collaboration Between Icelandic Museums and the Tourism Industry?
Author: Vera Vilhjálmsdóttir, Icelandic Tourism Research Centre

Iceland’s nature has been the main attraction for visitors, especially since the tourism boom in the country started 15 years ago, and nature-based tourism has flourished. However, according to a border survey conducted by the Icelandic Tourist Board in 2024, 54% of international tourists stated that Iceland’s culture influenced their decision to visit. Furthermore, museums were the third most popular activity. So, despite the heavy focus on nature in Icelandic tourism, culture plays an important role in tourists’ experiences while visiting Iceland.

The importance of cultural tourism, wherein museum tourism falls under, has steadily grown and become one of the fundamental pillars of tourism in Europe, drawing millions of visitors to the region every year. However, the needs and main goals of the two sectors – museums and tourism – can be very different in nature. Therefore, collaboration and mutual understanding is important for a good working relationship. Especially considering the need for the museums sector in Iceland to have a strong role and voice in the development of cultural tourism products, to ensure greater credibility and authenticity.

The paper presented is part of a one-year project, funded by the Icelandic Museum Fund, with the aim of establishing better cooperation between the two sectors by starting a dialogue through four workshops held around Iceland in 2026. Preliminary findings will be presented from the first two workshops, held in North and East Iceland in May 2026, touching upon topics such as opportunities, challenges, and how to approach strengthening the foundations of further collaboration.

 

Title: Between Cultural Tourism and Public Mission: What Libraries Can Learn from the Museum Sector
Authors: Jamie Rose Johnston, University of Iceland, Radoslav Hristov, and Tania Todorova

As heritage has increasingly become part of Iceland’s tourism industry, museums have raised concerns about how participation in tourism aligns with their legislative mandate to safeguard heritage for future generations. Similar questions may also be relevant for libraries. According to the Icelandic Library Act, libraries are public information and cultural institutions that provide access to diverse information resources and cultural heritage collections while promoting culture, literacy, lifelong learning, and public access to cultural resources. As publicly oriented institutions serving society rather than commercial interests, libraries may face similar tensions as they increasingly intersect with tourism.

These questions may be particularly relevant for national and academic libraries, which hold significant heritage collections while supporting research and education. Although these institutions are not strongly integrated into the tourism industry, their collections, exhibitions, and cultural activities have the potential to engage broader audiences, including local communities and international visitors.

Recent research on “library tourism” proposes that architecture, heritage collections, cultural events, and organized visits may position libraries as cultural attractions. Drawing on this concept, the paper adopts a conceptual and comparative perspective to consider how such approaches might be pursued while avoiding tensions that have emerged in the museum sector as heritage institutions engage more actively with tourism. By bringing the concept of library tourism into dialogue with museum debates on heritage commodification and cultural sustainability, the paper explores how libraries might increase visibility and public engagement without compromising their public mission or subordinating cultural mandates to commercial imperatives.

 

Title: Playing with Integrity: Museums Between Engagement and Disneyfication
Author: Stefanie Steinbeck, National Museum of Denmark

Museums in Denmark increasingly navigate a complex landscape of expectations shaped by cultural policy, declining public funding, and growing demands to demonstrate relevance, accessibility, and public value (). Alongside statutory obligations to research, preserve, and communicate cultural heritage, museums are pressured to function as attractive destinations within a competitive visitor and experience economy. These demands complicate contemporary understandings of what museums are, whom they serve, and how cultural value is articulated.

Within this context, play has emerged at the National Museum of Denmark as part of a participatory shift in museum practice (Simon, 2010). Drawing on the author’s involvement in the development project Moving Museums Through Play, this reflexive contribution examines how play-based initiatives respond to pressures associated with tourism and experiential appeal (Pine & Gilmore, 1999). While such approaches aim to broaden access, they sit uneasily with long-standing institutional norms of authority, seriousness, and controlled behaviour traditionally associated with national museums (Bennett, 1995).

Observations from play experiences in museum and heritage settings reveal a persistent duality. For established audiences and traditionally trained museum professionals, play is more likely to be perceived as disruptive or as signaling an unwanted convergence with entertainment culture. For new and infrequent visitors, playful formats function as low-threshold points of entry that support embodied and emotional engagement with cultural heritage (Falk & Dierking, 2013). The analysis highlights how proximity to the visitor and experience economy intensifies anxieties about trivialization or Disneyfication (Dan: Tivolisering) (Bryman, 2004), while revealing how institutional integrity is renegotiated as museums redefine their role.

Keywords: Cultural tourism, Experience economy, Heritage commodification, Institutional integrity, Play-based approaches

References

Bennett, T. (1995). The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics. London: Routledge.

Bryman, A. (2004). The Disneyization of Society. London: Sage.

Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2013). The Museum Experience Revisited. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Gieryn, T. F. (1983). Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American sociological review, 781-795.

Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1999). The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Simon, N. (2010). The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0.

 

Title: From Heritage to Destination: Tourism Strategies in Viking Age World Heritage Sites
Author: Helga Vollertsen, University of Iceland, National Museum of Iceland

This paper examines how World Heritage branding functions as a mechanism for attracting tourism, using the 2015 transnational serial nomination of Viking Age sites to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a case study. Although the nomination was ultimately deferred, several participating sites have been inscribed individually, including Þingvellir National Park (Iceland), Hedeby and Danevirke (Germany), and Jelling and the Danish ring fortresses (Denmark) and all of these sites use their World Heritage appointment as a selling point for visitors.

The paper argues that World Heritage inscription simultaneously creates opportunities and challenges for heritage sites. On the one hand, inscription enhances international visibility, strengthens cultural prestige, and increases tourism potential. On the other hand, it introduces significant pressures related to the preservation of authenticity and Outstanding Universal Value, particularly in the context of rising visitor numbers. These dynamics expose persistent tensions between conservation and commercialization.

Drawing on examples from the listed sites, and focusing on Þingvellir in Iceland, the paper explores how heritage management strategies respond to these competing demands. Attention is given to the role of cultural institutions, especially museums, in mediating between preservation objectives and tourism development. By interpreting, contextualizing, and managing visitor experiences, these institutions contribute to balancing access with conservation.

The paper highlights the broader challenges faced by World Heritage sites operating within a global tourism economy and underscores the importance of institutional approaches in negotiating the relationship between heritage conservation and commercial use.

 

Title: Between Image and Authenticity: Responding to Cross-Cultural Imaginaries in Icelandic Museums
Author: Yixuan Lu, University of Iceland

Iceland’s post-2008 tourism boom has placed cultural institutions under mounting pressure–from rising operational costs and infrastructural demands to expectations of multilingual interpretation and market-oriented programming. Among an increasingly diverse visitor base, Chinese tourists stand out: arrivals grew by 136% between 2022 and 2023, and by a further 72% between 2023 and 2024, bringing imaginaries shaped by social media discourse, popular culture, and a symbolic construction of Iceland as a space of escape, purity, and emotional restoration.

This study draws on these imaginaries as an entry point to interrogate how image and authenticity are constructed and negotiated within Icelandic museums. Grounded in theories of tourism imaginaries and multi-dimensional authenticity, the research combines content analysis of Chinese social media posts with discourse analysis of museum communications, and field interviews with Chinese visitors conducted at Icelandic museums. The analysis reveals that natural landscapes substantially dominate cultural references in Chinese representations of Iceland, while cultural encounters carry a distinctive and symbolically concentrated significance, which raises the question of how cultural institutions should position themselves in relation to visitors whose selective engagements with culture reflect different aspirations and value projections.

The study maps the tension between imaginaries arriving from outside and authenticity as locally defined and institutionally protected while tourism growth generates continuous pressure to accommodate and market. This paper argues that authenticity is not a fixed essence to be defended against external imaginaries, but a relational quality that carries opportunities for museums to engage meaningfully with a diversifying world.