MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Islanders in Iceland: looking at tourism through ?fresh eyes'

FOURTEEN members of the Falklands tourism industry returned to the Islands last week, filled with enthusiasm and inspiration after a ten day study tour of Iceland.

In those ten days, thousands of kilometres were covered by coach, with stops at some of the main tourist attractions and locations for field visits, interspersed by a wide range of seminars and workshops, providing Icelandic, Scottish and Falkland Island participants the opportunity to learn and share industry best practice.

Anyone who might have left the Islands with even the slightest notion that this trip would be a bit of a holiday, were soon put right as the itinerary for the two weeks was outlined and the first day's activities commenced. After the two day journey to the UK from the Falklands, and a few hours at Heathrow airport awaiting the connection to Iceland on a very hot 37degrees summer's day, the final leg flight to Keflavik airport landed just before midnight, on a chilly summer's evening of full daylight in Reykjavik. Regardless of the long journey and arrival at the accommodation at around 1am, the packed schedule for the study tour commenced at 9am with the first morning of presentations and discussions on the subject of ?meeting customer expectations' and included a presentation from a representative from the Icelandic Farm Holidays organisation.

Falklands Director of Tourism Connie Stevens reported that over the course of the next ten days, a "broad, but highly appropriate" range of subjects were covered by various speakers from all three participating countries, covering topics such as "marketing the destination, customer experience and sustainability. Most days were split into two learning experiences, with mornings spent in classrooms at various locations with all delegates involved in workshops and seminars, whilst the rest of the day, right through until late evening, was taken up by a range of field-visits organised to enable all participants to experience a range of Icelandic tourist providers services' first hand. Connie commented, "It is only too easy to be too close to your own product/services and this was a golden opportunity to look at a range of tourism products and services through fresh eyes, including our own industry and businesses, back in the Falklands. "It was particularly encouraging to see how businesses worked together to help build a much stronger tourism industry in Iceland."

Debbie Summers of Sulivan Shipping Ltd was among the group of Falklands delegates and echoed Connie's sentiments: "The whole time we were analysing things and seeing how we could use their ideas." She said that with regard to cruise ship tourism, "?the Falklands is ahead of Iceland and there was an exchange of ideas on ways forward. We had ideas to offer but we also had a lot to learn as well."

The field visits were arranged to various locations to gain an insight into Icelandic businesses, including the tourist board visitor centres, horse farms, a national park, a geyser centre, turf houses, various museums (including a whale watching museum, folk museum, textile museum and herring museum), boat tours, horse exhibition, seal centre, wool and factory shop, 4x4 activity centre, an historic church and an arts and crafts centre.

Despite admitting to "throwing a sulk" at the notion of 4x4 quad bike riding, Debbie said she "really enjoyed" the experience and it highlighted a "hang up" which exists in the Falklands. "We've got a really big hang up with insurance here and we really need to get over it. We had to sign a disclaimer saying that if we broke anything on the bike we'd have to pay for it... They set out the rules and of course didn't want us to get hurt but they didn't dwell on that; they focused on the fact that you'd have to pay if you screwed up. "Insurance just isn't an issue for them and we have to stop making it an issue here. We just have to get on and offer these things."

Three days were spent at Holar College, the main tourism and Agriculture College in northern Iceland. Here seminars covered topics relating to rural destinations, cultural tourism, horse tourism, adventure tourism and food tourism. Local tour guides joined the bus tour at various locations to share their local knowledge with the group en route to the different attractions within their own regions.

The initiative and ingenuity of the Icelandic people was striking, Debbie said. "78% of their population has moved to the capital, Reykjavik and there is now not much employment in the countryside apart from tourism; the farmers have formed an organisation to use tourism as a mechanism to keep people in the countryside." She said tourism has worked to make the Icelandic people proud of who they are: "That's something we can do in the Falklands to make tourism work - make people proud of what they've got to show and share with people. "It might just be a way of life to us but it's a novelty and of interest to anyone who doesn't live here..." Debbie said the group who travelled to Iceland are keen to establish working groups, "...to tackle some of the things that haven't been taken forward such as the accreditation of accommodation in the Falklands. "They've done that very simply in Iceland, they had four categories, whereas we may have tried to make it more complicated than perhaps it needs to be." She said the Falklands group are not now going to be "gurus" but added, "...I think we are now people with renewed energy and enthusiasm at the moment to take things forward and spread what we've learned."

Each participant had to complete a log book/diary of the entire study tour that is a prerequisite of the funding body, the Leonardo da Vinci Organisation, to enable them to evaluate the effectiveness of the study tour.

The visit to Iceland was a fantastic opportunity for all those involved to learn from their peers in another country, with similar issues to those we face in the Falkland Islands, Connie said. "It was an opportunity to share views, thoughts and ideas and to learn from the mistakes, and more importantly, the successes of an advanced tourist industry, of a fairly remote island in the Northern hemisphere. Participants from the Scottish Islands, Iceland and the Falklands found many areas of common ground to discuss at length. Areas of best practise were witnessed and ideas shared. "New friends and allies were made and hopefully, the outcome of all the hard work on behalf of everyone involved in this project, will be seen in the continued development of such a hugely important industry in the future of the Falkland Islands."

Debbie has already been in touch with some of the delegates from Scotland and Orkney that the Falklands group travelled with: "We're in touch about various points that we hope can eventually benefit our locations, exchanging ideas such as and how they deal with that ever important insurance issue..." She said the "main thing" that she has gained from the trip is the value of "working together" explaining, "There is enough business for everyone so we should be talking to our competitors... it's a small community and we should all be working together. It's a big step to take and people may have initial concerns to do it but I believe that it's the best way forward." Debbie added that the active fostering of tourism from the Icelandic government highlighted the need for such continued support in the Falklands. "It's vital to have government backing, not just financially but also in completely understanding the very real benefits tourism brings to the whole country" (PN)