Fewer Icelanders feel tourists are good for the country
Photo: Iceland Monitor/Ómar Óskarsson
Nine in ten Icelanders appreciate the impact of tourism on the nation’s economy – but just 16% think that tourists have a positive effect on the country’s nature.
A new study by MMR looks at locals’ attitudes to foreign tourists in Iceland as regards a number of factors. The full breakdown of results is given below.
While on average a majority of Icelanders feel that tourists have some sort of positive effect on their country, the figure is falling.
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The average positive figure (‘quite positive’ + ‘very positive’) across the seven categories is 60.4%. This is down almost seven points from a similar MMR study just a year ago, in July 2015 (67.2%).
The biggest fall in appreciation is in the category of ‘Reykjavik City Centre’, with those expressing a positive view falling from 67.5% a year ago to just 54.3% now.
