Árni Þór Sigurðsson the new Arctic ambassador of the Arctic Council, visited the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre on June 2nd.

A presentation on Augmented Reality will take place on June 5th from 13.30-15.30 in the University of Akureyri. AR is a technology that brings 3D and many more features to smart devices. AR provides an exciting opportunity for tourism companies in the near future.

The ITRC dissertation award for 2014 went to Willem Gerrit Tims and his dissertation entitled New Approaches for wilderness perception mapping: a case study from Vatnajökull National Park, Iceland. The award ceremony took place at the annual meeting of The Icelandic Travel Industry Association (SAF) on March 26th 2015 in Egilsstaðir.

The Icelandic Tourism Research Centre has launched a new webpage. All the material available on the former version is to be found in the new version.

Kristín Sóley Björnsdóttir has been temporarily recruited as the director of the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre (ITRC). Kristín Sóley Björnsdóttir has a master’s degree in cultural geography from the University of Gothenburg, school of business, law and economics. She has extensive experience in project and event management and held positions within the culture industry and tourism. Kristín Sóley worked as a specialist in cultural tourism at the ITRC till mid-year 2005, e.g. developing and promoting the medieval town of Gásar and teaching tourism at the faculty of business at the University of Akureyri. She ran the Gásir project from 2006 and also promoted the municipal museum before commencing work for Visit Akureyri in the beginning of 2014.

The Organisation “Friends of Vatnajökull“ has decided to grant the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre for the research project “Glacier Tourism and Climate Change in Iceland“ with two million ISK. The research project began in autumn 2013 and the researcher working on the project is Johannes T. Welling. The central goal of the project is to develop an adaptation strategy for glacier based tourism in Iceland to cope with the potential impacts of climate change and climate variability, based on a set of future scenarios.

The ITRC received a grant from the EU Leonardo lifelong learning programme in collaboration with colleagues from Poland and Greece to develop learning outcomes for service training in areas of great natural value. Domestically the ITRC collaborated with Hólar University College and the Travel Industry Association to develop these learning outcomes.

Wednesday the 10th September the director of the ITRC delivered a keynote at the 3rd Nordic Rural Studies conference held in Trondheim, Norway 8th to 10th September. The title of the keynote was: Tending to tourism. Tourism's role in thriving and declining communities.

The Programme at the ITRC for autumn 2014 is quite eventful as in previous years.