Iceland’s tourist industry only receives 1% of the annual funding the government invests in domestic industry, despite comprising nearly 25% of the country’s foreign income.
Vísir reports that the tourist industry received about 100 million ISK from the state for research and development. This is about 1% of all the money the state allocates from domestic R&D. At the same time, the tourist industry brought in about 238 billion ISK in 2012 alone, comprising 23.5% of Iceland’s foreign revenue.
Edward H. Huijbens, director of the Icelandic Tourism Research Centre, believes that more government funding should be budgeted to what is arguably Iceland’s fast-growing industry.
“The [low] quality of service [we can provide tourists] damages the quality of the experience for them, which in turn damages Iceland’s reputation as a tourist destination,” he said in part.
Government R&D in fishing, meanwhile, received about 55% of the pie in 2007, while energy production received 10%.
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