Photo: A curious arctic fox in Hornstrandir (The Arctic Fox Centre)

The Travel Industry Association of the Westfjords is now undertaking a strategic planning process. Three meetings were held in different sites of the Westfjords in the same week of early November, where all locals were invited to take part of the strategy planning and future missions discussed. The work is being led by Sigurður Atlason, the director of the association, Jón Páll Halldórsson Westfjords Tourism Office , Ásgerður Þorleifsdóttir Westfjords business Development Company  and Jón Jónsson, The cultural council of Westfjords. The results of the meetings will be collected by Ásgerður and used for further work on strategy planning and further developing of the tourism in the Westfjords.

The Wild North cluster in the Westfjords took active part in the strategy planning meetings and it was interesting to see how much value was given into sustainability and natural based tourism. We are heading towards new times where people are more aware of the environment and willing to take active part in developing ecotourism.

Some of the ideas were based on the results of a research on tourists in the Westfjords, conducted in the summer 2008 by our partners at the University Research Centre of the Westfjords. It is noteworthy that wildlife, bird watching, photographing and general outdoor nature is the highest rated interest of those who visited the region. This is in accordance to what we believe and we really want to be able to serve these groups as well as possible.