5th International Polar Tourism Research Network (IPTRN)

Tourism, People and Protected Areas in Polar Wilderness

Raufarhöfn, NE Iceland, 29 August - 2 September 2016

This fifth conference of the International Polar Tourism Research Network (IPTRN) will be hosted at the edge of the Arctic in the community of Raufarhöfn (pop. 200) in Northeast Iceland by the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre. Alongside the conference, a community workshop on tourism development will be held in collaboration with local stakeholders, with the input from conference participants, scholars from the Stefansson Arctic Institute, students of polar law and scholars from the Northern Research Forum in an effort to focus on tourism in the polar regions.

Papers presented at the conference will explore how expectations towards tourism development in peripheral places can be managed to contribute to the cultural wellbeing of peripheral communities or enhance the protection of the environment. Tourism operations in the polar-regions capitalize on the regions’ assets, including their landscapes, wildlife and remoteness. The polar regions remain relatively untouched by human activity and can be regarded as sparsely or non-populated wilderness areas. This increasingly attracts people from around the world, which may increase awareness about the polar regions while at the same time potentially negatively affecting the regions’ wilderness character.

The registration deadline for the conference is 1 July 2016 and the conference fee is: 75.000 ISK.

The IPTRN has a limited amount of funding available to award six travel fellowships to students (from undergraduate through to PhD-level) whose abstracts are accepted for presentation (See here). Each fellowship awarded includes the conference fee and US$500 towards travel expenses (full details here) and questions can be directed to Dr. Pat Maher.