Conclusion
As mentioned above, attitudes towards cruise tourism are rather positive, but still, most see a need for a limit to cruise visits. How this is to be enforced seems to be one of the biggest challenges; local stakeholders either do not know how this could be implemented or who would be entitled to do it, while others would see it as a personal risk taking in a small, tight-knit community to raise such a critical voice. So, there is a somewhat paradoxical situation in that “everyone” asks for a limit to cruise visits, and there is a need for “everyone” to get involved in such a discussion, while no one initiates this discussion. So, from one perspective, a big sustainability challenge seems in a sense to lie within the community itself. Potentially it would have a simple solution – start talking about it – but this seems to be one of the most difficult things of all. From another perspective, the issue lies far beyond the level of the community itself. Cruise lines are powerful players in the cruise industry and it is difficult for small cruise communities, dependent on cruise tourism, to negotiate with them. The industry involves many different actors and being the first destination in Iceland to enforce a limitation on cruise numbers might be daunting for a small community like Ísafjörður.
Future directions
At the beginning of 2023, a new harbor master has taken over in Ísafjörður. In an interview conducted in March 2023, he informed us he had a few days prior taken initiative, at a local harbor committee meeting, to enforce a limit to the number of cruise passengers, a carrying capacity limit. He was still uncertain what body could make such a decision, municipal or other, and about what types of factors to take into consideration, as well as what actors should be consulted. But he has taken the initiative and was hopeful that a decision about a limit would be in place before the season starts. He got the idea after having visited a cruise conference and spoken to local cruise stakeholders. His primary concern was to avoid a situation where too many cruise tourists come and there is nothing for them to do. So, what he was first and foremost thinking of was the limit in what the tourism companies and their infrastructure can manage, not the harbor itself, and therefore the primary stakeholders to consult were the local tourism companies, to his mind. Putting such a limit in place will take time and will not be enforced until the next year 2024 or the year after in 2025, seeing that cruise lines book long in advance. How this process unfolds remains to be explored.