Rural Tourist Routes - resident’s attitudes and inclusion

Research titled Tourist routes through rural areas. Research on resident’s attitudes and inclusion during the process of routes development. The research is aimed at the social aspect of tourist routes.

The research is directed at the first branded Icelandic tourist route, the Arctic Coast Way. The route is designed to pull tourists off the beaten track of Icelandic tourism mobilities, the Icelandic Ring Road, to instead follow the coastline of northern Iceland. As with other tourist routs, the Arctic Coast Way aims to connect service centres and remote areas along its way and thereby increase the possibilities for rural areas towards tourism development.

This research is designed to capture the views of rural residents towards the route, on if and how they were included during the development of the route and if they regard the route as beneficial for their area. The research focuses on two of the least populated areas on the route, Vatnsnes and Melrakkaslétta peninsulas. There, tourists partly pass through some of the most sparsely populated areas of Iceland.

The purpose of the research is to capture the locals’ perception of the Arctic Coast Way and their inclusion in the development of the route as well as to assess how the residents view the route's impact and potentials for development of the local tourism sector and related industries.  In that, the research offers valuable knowledge into the understudied social aspect following the development of tourist routes through rural areas.

The research is partly funded by the Icelandic Regional Development Institute’s Research Fund and will be conducted in cooperation with the associations of municipalities in the Northeast (SSNE) and Northwest (SSNV) of Iceland.

Project manager is Þórný Barðadóttir [thorny @ rmf.is].