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Iceland’s adventure tour guides get wise

By: Stefan Helgi Valsson, freelance journalist in Reykjavik Iceland

ICELAND: The first specialized adventure tour guides graduated from the Iceland Tourist Guide School in May. The course which includes 440 contact hours was developed in response to industry needs as more and more adventure tour operators prefer employing people with at least some basic knowledge of the adventure tourism industry. Industry interest in special education for adventure tour guides was sparked by a recent Supreme Court decision involving guides as well as the difficulty in obtaining competent staff.

Crushed Foot:
Only one successful lawsuit has been made in Iceland against an adventure tour operator, based on the negligence of a tour guide. An educational trip organized by an adventure tour operator for its employees turned into a nightmare for a young woman. In an e-mail received by the employees the trip was described as a team building exercise.

The group hiked upstream along a 40 degree cold river at the bottom of a deep ravine. Participants used wet-suits to protect them from the cold. When fatigue prevented some of the participants to continue, the fittest went ahead leaving the others behind.

Several rocks fell without warning from the top of the ravine into the river where the slower group was waiting. One rock landed on the young woman’s foot crushing it beyond saving. Subsequently, the foot had to be amputated half-way up to her knee. The other people in the group were extremely lucky to escape injury as some of the rocks landed only inches away.

An expert witness testified that rock falls could be expected in the ravine at any time, especially during and after rain. This indeed had been the case when the accident occurred on an autumn day in September 2001.

Court finds Guides Responsible:
In the court’s verdict it states that the guides “should have realized the danger of falling rocks in the ravine”, especially because it had rained heavily for a few days before the trip. Further, the guides were “absent from the place where the rocks fell” as they had gone ahead and left a part of the group behind. Further, the guides “should have kept the group together and stayed with it to ensure the young woman’s safety”. And finally, the guides should have “accompanied each participant in the group to a safe place”. Although the accident was caused by a natural catastrophe, the Supreme Court ruled that the adventure tour operator was liable for the accident, somewhat based on the negligence of its guides. Subsequently the court awarded the woman 100,000 USD.

“The tour operator is always responsible for its guests in case of an accident,” says Halldór Kristjánsson, CEO of Activity Group tour operator and chairman of the Adventure Tourism Committee of the Icelandic Travel Industry Association. “In exceptional cases, after a claim has been settled, the tour operator may possibly be able to reclaim some of the money back from a sub-contractor, or an employee found guilty of gross negligence.”

Most businesses in Iceland, including tour operators, subscribe to a business insurance policy and some have an additional third party policy. The tour operator in question did indeed have such policies, coincidentally both with the same insurance company. This fact may have influenced the outcome of the case as the insurance company had no special interest in defending the guide’s actions. The insurance company was liable to pay, regardless of whether the guides were found guilty or not.

Machines are more important to insurance companies than people “Insurance companies are unconcerned with the lack of professional qualifications of tour guides. What matters most to them is that our vehicles and equipment, such as super jeeps, ski-doos and other motorized vehicles are licensed correctly and that their drivers are in possession of a public driver’s permit,” says Yngvi Ragnar Kristjánsson, a tour operator and hotel owner in Lake Mývatn region. “Any guide who accepts a job must know what he is doing. We prefer to hire staff that has received education and training in the various tourism sectors, but then we like to mould their skills to our needs.”

Education and training of adventure guides One thousand students have graduated from the Iceland Tourist Guide School since its formal beginning in 1976. Most graduates are general knowledge guides, trained to conduct motor-coach tours while only a few dozen have qualified as hiking guides. The first seven adventure guides graduated from the school in May. However, hopeful tour operators will be disappointed this tourist season because none of the graduates is planning to put their educational skills to use. They already have “a real job”, which they are reluctant to give up for the meager salaries and job insecurity offered by the tourism industry.

Super 4x4s modified for driving on glaciers set a land-speed record While Iceland provides ample opportunities for almost any kind of outdoor adventure experience on sea and land, most of the tour operators offer “soft” adventure tours. These tours are either categorized as motorized or non-motorized. Examples of motorized activity includes; super jeep safaris, whale watching and ski-doo trips while hiking and white water rafting are examples of non-motorized experiences.

“In Iceland our place-specific adventure tour product is the use of modified jeeps that we use to drive on glaciers,” Kristjánsson says. One such vehicle, designed and built in Iceland, broke the world land-speed record to Antarctica last December.