Hello! Welcome to this blog. My name is Marisa Schmidt. I am a Sophomore at GAC and am very excited to be able to be on this study abroad program to Iceland. Today (as will most of the following blogs) will be about tourism. I have never traveled outside of the U.S., so this is a very surreal experience for me. Throughout this course, as students, we are working to switch our thinking from just “oh this is cool”, “look at this mural”, “oh look a cute souvenir shop”… we are working to understand the purpose that all these interesting and new things serve in the world of tourism.
The adventures today consisted of exploring downtown Reykjavik, but also exploring outside of the city to see the difference between the main tourist attractions and residential parts of Reykjavik. One of the first things that I noticed was the mass amount of tourists on the main city street area. Off of “Rainbow Road”, one of the main tourist attractions in the city, there is a church at the top of the hill. At the church it was surrounded by people with their cameras out and posing for pictures. This trend continues down the Rainbow Road. Down this street there are multiple different tourist attractions such as cafes, “Icelandic food”, and of course Puffin Shops.
As I observe the city I would argue that these Puffin Shops, icewear shops, cafes or “Icelandic food” restaurants seem to have overtaken the city. As we think about the impact of tourism on the country this is definitely important to note. Downtown Reykjavik is very tailored towards the tourists because of the recent spike of interest and visitation in the country. What used to be presumably a quaint, yet lively, city is now filled with people from all around the world. The tourism industry is very important to the country and has been very beneficial especially after the economic crash in 2008. As Iceland continues to recover from that they have relied heavily on the tourism economy. I can understand how this can be difficult for the residents of Reykjavik. Those who have lived here their whole lives are now suddenly being bombarded with millions of people from all over the world. Restassured, research and studies show that the majority of icelanders recognize the benefits of tourism in their country and have positive connotations towards the visitors.
When we were exploring just outside of downtown Reykjavik the vibe definitely changed. As I observed a seemingly common neighborhood it was interesting to see how the tourist attention grabbers disappeared. One major observation I noted was that the signs outside the buildings changed from English to Icelandic. I found this to be very wholesome, as if the country planned the tourist attraction areas to be accommodating towards the tourists or as if we were being taken care of. There were less bright flashing signs and lights and the buildings and homes seemed to be more minimalistic and realistic towards everyday icelandic life. Another important observation I have noted is the use of public transportation. The main form of transportation is the city buses. I have found that these are very easy to use and you can get almost anywhere in the city that you need to! This is something that is very great for the environment, but also easily accessible for both tourists and the residents. I’d say that’s a win-win situation.
Overall I have had a very positive experience so far here in Iceland and I am very excited to see where the rest of the trip takes us!