How to do tourism responsibly in the Faroe Islands

“Fas­cin­at­ing and not for every­one” is how I would describe the Nor­d­ic archipelago of the Faroe Islands; a cluster of steep vol­can­ic islands between Nor­way, Scot­land, and Ice­land which are inhab­ited by 50,000 cit­izens deeply devoted to their land.

Des­pite extreme weath­er con­di­tions, with 300 rainy days dur­ing the year, the Faroe Islands have lately become trendy for hikers and oth­ers who want to explore the archipelago’s unique land­scapes and pristine nature.

Tour­ism is now the second most import­ant eco­nom­ic source of for­eign exchange (after fish exports), how­ever the con­tinu­ously rising inflows are seen by loc­als as an envir­on­ment­al and social threat.

Indeed, not every tour­ist is respect­ful of Faroese land and pri­vacy. Author­it­ies have repor­ted count­less face-to-face clashes between tour­ists and locals.

Unlike the afore­men­tioned tour­ists, I have offered and been treated with max­im­um respect dur­ing the com­ple­tion of two research pro­jects in the Faroe Islands between 2020 and 2021.

Dur­ing both adven­tures, I was invited into Faroese homes dur­ing their spe­cial occa­sions, and I met politi­cians, fish­ers, farm­ers, and entre­pren­eurs. My mis­sion was to bet­ter under­stand atti­tudes towards tour­ism and its devel­op­ment in the Faroe Islands.

For this “GT” Insight I am happy to share with you a brief sum­mary of my find­ings, which have been pub­lished in full by the Journ­al of Respons­ible Tour­ism Man­age­ment.

Quality tourists only, please … and no cruise passengers

Every Faroese cit­izen I inter­viewed agreed with the idea that the Faroe Islands is a unique des­tin­a­tion vul­ner­able to large-scale human pressure.

While they acknow­ledged that tour­ism is a poten­tial valu­able source of rev­en­ue, they appeared vis­ibly scared about the future of tour­ism in their country.

To pre­vent destruc­tion of their nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age, inhab­it­ants wished to wel­come well-off and respect­ful tour­ists will­ing to engage with loc­als and live like res­id­ents for a pro­longed peri­od of time.

In this con­text, cruise tour­ism is not an option since cruise pas­sen­gers come and go. They fleet­ingly step on Faroese land without inter­act­ing with the loc­als nor even spend­ing much, if any, money.

Highly welcoming to anyone with a genuine interest

Con­sid­er­ing that the inhab­it­ants’ instinct is to pre­serve their ter­rit­ory and pro­tect it from mass tour­ism, I was sur­prised by the friendly atti­tude they had towards me, a tour­ism research­er. Their beha­vi­or dur­ing every encounter was very sim­il­ar to Itali­an and Span­ish attitudes. Every inter­viewee was happy to talk with me and showed their com­mit­ment to help in any pos­sible way. Most respond­ents did not set a spe­cif­ic time­frame for our inter­ac­tion, instead offer­ing me cof­fee, bis­cuits, or even meals. And they intro­duced me to oth­er Faroese who, in turn, helped me with my research.

Once they real­ised I was striv­ing to learn and help the com­munity, they were appre­ci­at­ive of my efforts.

But don’t stray off the path … literally

For your own safety, and for pre­serving farm­ers’ fields and pas­tures, it is a basic but strict require­ment for both loc­als and tour­ists not to wander off the walk­ing trails.

In short, the Faroese are very friendly, but they wish to open their coun­try to a lim­ited num­ber of respons­ible tour­ists who show their will­ing­ness to inter­act, learn, and con­trib­ute to the good image of the country.

Bear this in mind should you vis­it for a hol­i­day or want to do busi­ness in the Faroe Islands. Fol­low my sug­ges­tions and you will not regret it!

Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci writes: “Herd­ing sheep is a long tra­di­tion in the Faroe Islands, and people are very proud to wear clas­sic sweat­ers made with their wool. Sheep are the sym­bol of the Faroe Islands and it is no sur­prise that these anim­als out­num­ber people and can be seen every­where, from town centres to steep rocky val­leys. Pure enter­tain­ment dur­ing hikes or car journeys!”