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Eight on my list is the heritage of discovery and exploration, fostered by
the medieval Viking sagas that have been told and retold to every
Icelandic child. This is a tradition that gives honour to those who venture
into unknown lands, who dare to journey to foreign fields, interpreting
modern business ventures as an extension of the Viking spirit,
applauding the successful entrepreneurs as heirs of this proud tradition
(Grímsson cited in Reykjavik Grapevine 2009, issue 4, p. 8).
So it is that the old scars of cultural imaginationings cut much
deeper than the new recent wounds of the “kreppa”, the financial
meltdown that hit Iceland in the fall of 2008. The media coverage that
Iceland received during the height of the crises could hardly have been
bought for money, and the favourable Icelandic krona exchange rate seems
to be propelling the tourism industry into new times and rounds of
prosperity. Whatever the future has to offer, it is clear that the financial
turmoil has once again put tourism at the centre of Icelandic
imaginationing in its position as prime rescuer of the post war resource
driven economy (see Jóhannesson & Huijbens, forthcoming). As it was
said before the crisis:
In every part of Iceland there are investments that need to bring in a
return. If we could manage that, there would be economic growth in all
the rural areas. Behind every 50,000 tourists there are around a thousand
work years and 60 million dollars in added value distributed through all
parts of society (Magnason 2008, p. 273).
This economic imaginationing of tourism may be compared with the
parliamentary resolution on tourism, “Tourism strategy 2006-2015”, with
its vision of environmental consciousness and features like “purity”,
“health”, “safety” and the country’s “beauty” in terms of untouched nature.
Incidentally, during the last two decades the cover of Iceland’s Tourist
Board’s yearly brochure has predominantly presented an image
characterized by water, rather static nature and bluish colours
(Gunnarsdóttir 2007). This seems to be well in line with a common rule in
tourism of marketing “groomed spaces”. According to Hunter:
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