Surviving success in an era of overtourism : Exploring the compatibility of Icelandic tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs with the degrowth concept

The tourism industry has been faced with immense growth worldwide. Due to the industry being resource-heavy, this development has been problematic in terms of sustainable development. This has resulted in overtourism becoming the reality of multiple destinations, which have then faced ecological and social degradation. Therefore, it is important to explore alternative pathways toward sustainable development that do not prioritise growth. The pathway that will be explored in this thesis is degrowth. In the past, degrowth has been under-researched within tourism studies, especially in terms of practical solutions. This research aims to fill that research gap by exploring the compatibility of Icelandic tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs running small to medium -sized businesses in rural Iceland. But Iceland has been one of the destinations that have been faced with overtourism. This research is conducted by using an exploratory research design where data was collected through eight in-depth interviews with tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs across Iceland. The findings of this thesis suggest that while Icelandic tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs are compatible with the degrowth concept, it is important for the sake of sustainable tourism development to re-shift the focus away from growth and more towards well-being