Guiding in a nature destination

ABSTRACT

As nature attracts most travellers to Iceland, nature conservation is central in sustainable tourism development in the destination. A competent guide can turn a tour into an enjoyable, engaging and educational nature experience, whereas a less competent guide may simply execute the logistics of taking tourists from one point of interest to another. This is a mixed-method study where data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews and desk research. Our findings were that nature conservation was not a theme the guiding, informing and managing of tour groups observed. Nature conservation was not a topic present in the information tour companies supply the guides with, and it was not a prominent theme in the curricula of guide education. Guiding on nature phenomena consisted mainly of information about geology and geoformations. Guiding was mostly verbal, without much attention to experience design. Our conclusions are that more emphasis should be placed on facilitating experience and that an important opportunity for promoting tourism sustainability is missed as nature conservation is neglected. The implication is that these topics should be emphasized more in professional guide education, in the professional community of guides and by tour operators.

KEYWORDS:

• nature conservation
• guides
• tour operators
• guide education
• Iceland

Acknowledgements

We thank all those who facilitated this research, the professional association of Icelandic guides, the tour operators, the guides and drivers on the tours, as well as the staff of the educational institutions. We are also grateful to our colleagues and students at Holar University for their advice and enthusiasm for the project. The Nature Conservation Fund of Pálmi Jónsson, sponsored the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).