Saga - 2015, Side 109

þá járnbrautarkerfi sem teygðu anga sína um allar trissur með gisti-
húsum og hótelum innan seilingar. Þannig hafði þróun samgangna
veruleg áhrif á ferðahegðun og formgerð ferðamanna í vestur-
evrópu en síður hérlendis.96 Þó gæti breytt ferðamynstur undir lok
nítjándu aldar (skemmri viðdvöl á landinu og hraðari yfirferð) bent
til þess að ferðamönnum af miðstétt hafi fjölgað á þeim tíma.
Öra fjölgun erlendra ferðamanna um og upp úr aldamótunum
1900 má að miklu leyti rekja til vinsælda hópferða um landið og
heimsókna skemmtiferðaskipanna. einnig eru sterkar vísbendingar
um að vinsælar erlendar skáldsögur, sem gerðust að nokkru leyti
hér á landi, hafi á sama tíma laðað hingað fjölmarga ferðamenn. Á
árunum 1905–1914 myndaðist umtalsverð menningarferðaþjónusta
í tengslum við komur þýsku skemmtiferðaskipanna til Reykjavíkur
og þá var ferðamennskan á suðvesturhorni landsins farin að bera
einkenni fjöldaferðamennsku yfir hásumarið.
Abstract
arnþór gunnars son
FOReIGN TOURISTS TO ICeLAND, 1858–1914
This article has two objectives: on the one hand to improve the accuracy of figures
on the number of foreign tourists who arrived during the above period, revealing
both fluctuations and general increases, and on the other hand to portray the
tourist typologies and motivations that lay behind these figures. Icelandic news-
papers and periodicals are used as sources, since they reported not only ship
arrivals but often also whether there were foreign passengers, sometimes even
specifying the number and names of such passengers, their reasons for coming,
etc. Apparently there are no registers or statistics on foreign visitors during the
above period, but some perspective is provided by developments in tourism over-
seas, above all in other parts of europe and not least on trips arranged by the
British within Britain and on the Continent.
For centuries, Iceland was extremely isolated. Ship traffic was sparse and the
sea journey so lengthy that foreigners arrived only rarely, so that sometimes no
travellers came at all for years at a time. Although visits grew much more frequent
after 1830, Iceland did not witness a vast increase in the number of visitors. In the
latter 18th and early 19th centuries, those who did come were generally well-edu-
ferðamannalandið ísland 107
96 John R. Gold og Margaret M. Gold, Imagining Scotland, bls. 91, 93, 95–101, 112
og 195; katherine Haldane Grenier, Tourism and Identity in Scotland 1770–1914,
bls. 58–64.
Saga haust 2015 umbrot.qxp_Saga haust 2004 - NOTA 26.11.2015 11:00 Page 107