Touristic photography and impact of tourism in Iceland

Tourism is the world’s fastest growing industry and it is influenced and reflected by each other’s
lifestyle. Therewith touristic photography has a doubtful association with tourism. It has a solid
personality and sense of place, and is embraced into history in physical frame and social activity,
by the words of Human (1999). People usually travel to go on “sightsnaping” or to fulfill their
needs and gather some personal experiences in various destinations. Photos nowadays are used
mostly as a proof that a vacation took place in a specific destination and certain touristic
objectives have been accomplished. The activity of taking photographs while on vacation can be
compared to a treasure hunt and fills the need of having samples from all over the world.

Obviously the photos turn out to be more significant than the actual experiences encountered in a
specific place, and one may state that individuals travel to take photos, the following example
might stand – the first thing it comes into your mind while you see a well known picture is to
reproduce it by taking a photograph. . “A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is
also a way of refusing it by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting
experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs”
(Sontag 1979). When a tourist is preoccupied only to immortalize the moment, the actual
experience from a holiday that were not surprised by the camera become unsubstantial because
the photos are shaping ones memory of conjuncture. While a person is watching the photos from
an old vacation, the specific environment captured on camera comes to his mind and this may
not reflect the actual experience that person lived.

Talking about Iceland, tourism was not exploited since early 1990s, when the tourists exceeded
the 100.000 milestone; before then there were barely 40.000 tourists per year. The numbers got
higher and higher since 2000, when the tourists exceeded 300.000 and since then it is growing
yearly, but after the global crisis from 2008 and the volcanic activity from 2010, the numbers of
tourists coming to visit Iceland were decreasing. At that certain point, the Iceland Government
and the Icelandic travel industry joined forces and made a campaign to revitalize the tourism in
there.

If not legitimately oversaw, high tourism effect may harm delicate ecosystems, and bring
reduction to travelers satisfaction (Boers & Cottrell, 2005; Buckley, 2000; Wall& Mathieson,
2006). In Iceland the vegetation and soil cover are highly delicate and powerless to both natural
and anthropogenic pressure. The effect of inadequate types of tourism would easily trigger soil
disintegration and land corruption. Nevertheless, there are a few studies regarding the ambiental
impact of tourism in Iceland. To accomplish sustainable tourism development in delicate
conditions, tourism should be kept in such a manner that it should not cause negative disorder in
culture, society or economy. Along these lines, when committed to sustainable tourism, is going
to give long-run changes into the local economy and infrastructure, and for this reason it is
crucial in regions where absence of activities and declining economy regularly constrain citizens
to move.

Keeping in mind the end goal to secure long-run prosperity from tourism, leaders require clear
arranging tools with which to record the effects of tourism on environmental, cultural and
economical sustainability. Moreover, to guarantee the success of sustainable tourist attractions,
variations in the affectability and vulnerability of both the regular and the social heritage of each
site must be perceived and mapped. The provocation is to give the travelers the framework that
they require and additionally to distinguish practical systems for sustainable use of the natural
resources.

Over building frameworks and over developing wildness zones, harm moss-covered zones and
breaking down of recent volcanic activity are altogether cases of tourism’s negative outcomes on
Iceland’s natural habitat. Following the expanding number of travelers, more infrastructure is
created on the natural attractions, for example, hiking ways, wooden stairs or sightseeing
platforms in order to fulfill the needs of the tourists, but they got a negative impact on the
landscapes and harm their unique magnificence. Iceland’s soil is susceptible to erosion due to
intense volcanic activity, hence moss plays an important role as it impregnates into the soil and
prevents soil erosion. It also helps combating the air pollution. Tourists that prefer to hike on off-
trails are going to endanger even more the moss areas, since they are stepping directly on it.

Iceland is mainly creating energy by the help of geothermal and hydro power plants because of
its unique location, thus with the growing demand in tourism, the demand for energy increases
too and it is pressuring the natural habitat even more because more plants and dams are built
around the wild zones, so the natural environment is decaying even more.

Even if tourism has accelerated the Icelandic economy, barely any programs are financed to help
preserving the natural areas, subsequently there is not any positive effect of tourism on Iceland’s
condition.

Not only the environment is affected by tourism, but it affects in a negative way the local people.
As more travelers from around the globe come to visit, other nations’ traditions and culture are
embedded into Iceland’s society, which causes lose of culture and personality, traditions of
Iceland adjust and become related to other places’. This is known as exhibition impact, and it can
be reflected by numerous parts of the general public. For instance, rather than exploring and
purchasing traditional craft works from the streets of Reykjavik, tourists now go shopping in the
mall from the center of the city, which is loaded with different brands. This is a contrary result
on local people as their way of life changes and become more similar to others and turned out to
be less specific. The amount of local artists is probably going to diminish as less individuals are
purchasing their works, which makes it difficult for them to maintain their occupation.
Generally, tourism has positive and negative effects on economy, environment, local people and
tourists. As to decrease the negative effects of tourism in Iceland, tourists should be careful with
the awareness of the environment, guarantee they are not embedding their very own ideas into
the Icelandic culture and help with Iceland’s sustainable development.

Social media has had a tremendous effect on the tourism industry. Customers draw in with social
networks to explore trips, settle on acquainted choices about their movements and offer their
own encounters of a specific restaurant, hotel or airline. Instagram for example has a wide-
achieving impact on the business. It has over 800 million active monthly users from which a big
part of them are using Instagram for deciding which trip should they take next. Social media
assume a major part in tourism, particularly in marketing campaigns and decision-making
because of their nature to speak directly to the consumer. Likewise, tourism depends to a high
reach out on the verbal message such as opinions of tourists that traveled to a specific place or
recommendations and comments on platforms. A large part of clients concede that they trust
earned media that combine suggestions from colleagues, friends of family, as opposed to
promoting directly the destination. Furthermore, clients are inclined to like the photos posted on
Instagram and discover motivation for their future vacations. Notwithstanding when not
completely mindful of it, our behavior on social media may influence our decisions.

We can easily see that the correspondences in the virtual world are exceptionally quick and news
spreads faster than in some other type of communication over the internet. It is not any more
essential for the people to hold up to interact physically to have the capacity to comprehend the
genuine circumstance of a spot that they wish to visit. It is now achievable for the people to get
inspired by word of mouth with the development of social media platforms.

Because of the vulnerability of traveler’s benefits, a tourist should get the essential information
in order to make the correct choice concerning the trip. Nowadays, tourists have more trust in
other tourist’s suppositions utilizing social media instead of regular tourism agencies which can
provide information too.

After I have analyzed the Iceland’s Instagram account, I selected 50 pictures using a systemic
sampling system, selecting every 6th photo thus I can research a wider part of their gallery,
covering a larger portion of time. I can conclude that 69.84% of the photos were taken outdoors,
while only 30.15% of them were taken indoors. Regarding outdoor images, natural environment
was the main characteristic of the photos taken, resulting a total of 36.36% of the outdoor photos.
31.81% of photos were taken to random elements such as panoramic views of specific cities
including ordinary life events, fireworks, or landscapes of humans embracing nature.

15.90% of the pictures were containing people present, and the other 15.90% were with
buildings, pointing out the Icelandic architecture.

Talking about the indoor photos, they composed a total of 30.15%, from those, 47.36% of photos
were with people, immortalizing the joy and the hospitality of the Icelandic people, 31.57% of
images were containing food and beverage products, 15.78% of them were with other elements
such as musical instruments and 5.26% were photos taken to hotels.

In both of the indoor pictures that I find the most representative for Iceland there are bands
performing on stage. I chose those photos because Icelandic people, by their nature are artists
and I find it inspiring. Everywhere on the streets of Reykjavik you can find different types of
artists performing their acts. They, as a nation are happy and are enjoying life at its real value.

The first photo ensembles a band performing at one of the well-known music events from
Reykjavik. As I stated before, Icelanders are great musicians and this can be seen from the crowd
which is “hypnotized” by the artist.

The second image from indoor merges three photos in one. The photos are taken from an annual
festival from Iceland called Iceland Airwaves. In the photos we can easily observe the people
enjoying the interprets, and the three different bands on the stage.

Talking about the outdoor photos, I chose two of the main attraction of Iceland. One of those is
the Gulfoss waterfall which is one of the most spectacular waterfalls from Europe. The picture
itself is eye-catching since the waterfall was immortalized in the winter and the surroundings
were frozen. The other picture contains one of the most beautiful natural phenomenon, the
northern lights, which can be considered as a signature for Iceland, since many tourists are
travelling towards the country especially to see this specific occurrence.

The picture of Gulfoss waterfall was taken from above and shows another side of the waterfall;
which is the waterfall itself surrounded by ice and snow.

The second picture from outdoors shows the true wonder of nature, the aurora borealis which
itself brings a lot of tourists to the northern countries.

Conclusion

It is noticeable that the ages are ending up progressively and more receptive to surfing for the
necessities instead of searching for them in a physically manner. We have to fulfill our cultural
needs and travelling is one of them even though we are choosing our future destination on the
run while taking a ride with the bus or we have decided to go in that wanted city break in the
lunch break while shuffling through the Facebook posts you saw a good deal. The life nowadays
has become fast and the times changed from the last century. As the biggest hotel chain in the
world does not physically own any rooms, and the greatest tourism agency does not have any
workstations, the technology has started to leave a footprint between us.
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Appendix

The most representative photos I have chosen for Iceland are the following:

https://www.instagram.com/p/fZMo-JKqXM/?taken-by=icelandnatural
https://www.instagram.com/p/XNLIoiqqSD/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/yc2XYTqqct/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/8oE3GNqqbe/?taken-by=icelandnatural

The whole sample of photos used for this article:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZQ-C_-gII9/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX3kgQGhFe0/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWxk7yfgfDe/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BV4zuZaA4v0/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVFb_7EgQxV/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTUMkZMgl38/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRtS2QuAdXP/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQBEC-QDgxY/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOFcapnD6a7/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNKf3LZDZTv/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLysGSljIvL/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKVyB6TAIG8/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIsGrKUAbH8/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHSIQ2XjmXh/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGKQ8oTKqWV/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEWt5PLqqV_/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDL8855KqXE/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BB8Jm25qqZH/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/BANAYrEqqRk/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/-Onc8eKqY0/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/8oE3GNqqbe/?taken-by=icelandnatural
https://www.instagram.com/p/7djKlVKqVQ/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/6DrwOnKqez/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/4XcrM6qqad/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/1gCfhxqqRc/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/0K8sXUqqUb/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/yc2XYTqqct/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/whIS4HKqXw/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/u0qBXwKqXi/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/tiadiNqqc_/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/rpK5s7qqaP/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/p88CvPKqSL/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/oQ6_qQKqQP/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/mDAelmKqcy/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/lgPUS5qqbH/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/lSXjfsKqYl/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/jMj1XXqqQ9/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/gqmAqWKqfH/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/fZMo-JKqXM/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/fHF2JWqqWP/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/fGjuAaqqch/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/fBxQ9jqqR3/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/bEW5LnKqYt/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/Zsg-UmKqc0/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/XOSOOyqqWP/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/XNLIoiqqSD/?taken-by=icelandnatural
https://www.instagram.com/p/WQE8ZTKqc7/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/VMWUl6qqfe/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ul2nhRqqaf/?taken-by=icelandnatural

https://www.instagram.com/p/UUeqJPKqQh/?taken-by=icelandnatural