Keynote
Ásta Kristín Sigurjónsdóttir is CEO of the Iceland Tourism Cluster since the beginning of 2016. The Iceland Tourism Cluster is a business-driven organization with members from all over the value chain of Tourism and travel and focuses on promoting competitiveness and value creation within the Icelandic tourism industry.
The projects that the Tourism Cluster in Iceland has been focusing on under her leadership for the past five years involve innovation, sustainable, and responsible tourism together with higher education and quality. The Clusters Post Covid-19 action plan under the umbrella of Restart Tourism will be divided into three categories and involves sustainability, innovation, and travel tech solutions.
Panelists
Rannveig Grétarsdóttir is owner and CEO for Elding Adventure at Sea. Elding is family run tourcompany that offers the most talked-about whale watching and sea adventure tours in Iceland. Aside from Whale Watching, Elding offers Northern Lights curies, Sea Angling tours, Bird watching, dining cruises and various adventure combinations.
Antti Antikainen is currently working as a board member of Safartica. He have done 25 year career in tourism industry in Lapland. Starting as a quide and working last 5 years as a sales director. Safartica is a privately-owned Destination Management Company and incoming safari house. Safartica is operating in Rovaniemi, the hometown of Santa Claus, and in Ylläs, Finland’s best ski resort next to the vast national park near the Swedish border in North-West Lapland. We cater for small 2 persons groups and up to large groups of hundreds of persons.
David MacLachlan is the current Executive Director for Destination Northern Ontario, the provincially funded regional tourism organization operating in Region 13 with a mandate to increase tourism receipts through product development, marketing, workforce development and investment attraction. David grew up in the tourism industry and is third generation to work in the family tourism business started over sixty years ago by his grandfather. David is also a past chair of the Algoma Kinniwabi Travel Association, OTMPC Northern Tourism Marketing Committee and sat on the Board of Directors for OTMPC.
Dieter K. Müller is a professor of human geography and, currently, Deputy Vice-chancellor for research, Umeå University, Sweden. His research interests specifically include almost all aspects of second homes, indigenous tourism, nature-based tourism, tourism labor markets, regional development and rural change particularly in Northern peripheries and Polar areas.
Skarphéðinn Berg Steinarsson is the director general of the Icelandic Tourist Board. The Icelandic Tourist Board is an independent authority under the Ministry of Industries and Innovation. It monitors and promotes the development of tourism as an important and sustainable pillar of the Icelandic economy, and facilitate coordination, analyses and research in the tourism sector in accordance with government policy.