Communicating Risk in Glacier Tourism: A Case Study of the Svínafellsheiði Fracture in Iceland

Abstract

Every day in early summer 2018, an estimated 1000 tourists went on guided tours of Svínafellsjökull, an outlet glacier in southeast Iceland. However, this changed on 22 June 2018, when a warning was issued against glacial travel due to the risk of a large landslide caused by a fracture in the surrounding mountainside. Tourists often entrust tourism employees with responsibility for their safety; however, there is a dearth of research into the ways in which tourism employees receive and respond to risk communication. These dynamics were explored in this ethnographic study, which drew on 50 semistructured interviews and extensive participant observation. The results indicate that despite demographic shifts, Icelandic inhabitants remain the basic unit on which risk management processes are centered, with repercussions for the ways in which exposure is calculated and risk is communicated. Tourists and tourism employees have a limited understanding of the risk and emergency protocols compared with local inhabitants. We argue that, for their own safety and that of customers, risk communication needs to be tailored to the needs of tourism employees, including guides and hospitality workers. The recommendations that emerge from this research can guide risk communication strategies in other mountainous regions of the world where tourism is an important source of livelihoods.