During our research period in Iceland, we conducted interviews with multiple leaders in the tourism industry. While much of their insight has been incorporated into our story, we thought that longer versions of their interviews could provide additional insight. They appear below and are edited for clarity.

Grímur Sæmundsson, CEO of Iceland’s Blue Lagoon

Q: Looking forward, how do you feel about the prospects of Blue Lagoon and Iceland as a whole continuing to cope with increased tourism growth? A: I think for my business, we're quite optimistic for the prospects of being a leading brand in Iceland tourism. For the country, I'm quite optimistic. We're used to tackling the elements and living in a very harsh environment. I'm very optimistic that the nation will tackle this and I think that now we have the first signs of that. We're starting to come together to see what does the project have to deal with and how can we deal with it. In general I'm very optimistic for the future of tourism in Iceland. I think it's healthy for the industry, and for the nation, that this huge growth year over year could kind of go down a bit. What we'll be confronted with will be a matter of debate. The decision is do we have the courage to step back and say, we're not going to be everything for everyone. I don't want to experience Iceland as some kind of a mass destination. Q: You’re building a luxury hotel next to Blue Lagoon. How do you feel about working to turn Iceland into more of an expensive, high-class destination? A: You know, I would like to see Iceland keep its characteristics as being very interesting place to visit. Iceland should not be cheap. It should be rather expensive, and with opportunities that are inexpensive. You're able to come to Iceland on a low budget, but the image of the country is not low budget. It is rather expensive and these are issues that we need to, from a strategic viewpoint, kind of develop together with the authorities. What kind of a destination do we want Iceland to be in 10 to 15 years? Q: What’s your perspective on the role Airbnb has played over the last few years? A: The Airbnb development has two sides like everything. It has the positive side. We would never have been able to receive all these number of tourists if it was not for Airbnb because the whole tourism issue in Iceland, even that we're now building hotels, we're still not kind of getting there. Airbnb in that sense has a very positive impact, but the negative impact is that people who had been investing in hotels feel that the competition situation is very screwed up because Airbnb has been kind of under the radar regarding paying dues and taxes.

The government was just getting more and more revenue from tourism and they acted like they didn't know where it came from. Grímur Sæmundsson, CEO of Iceland’s Blue Lagoon

Now we have a new law on Airbnb, but this leaves out the social impact. Actually I am most worried about the social impact. It is definitely positive for those who are getting revenue from their properties by having them on Airbnb. For the others, you know, the neighbors and environment, people might be pissed off. You're living in an apartment building and there are always new people on the floor above you or below you. This creates [the] kind of unrest that this is definitely something that needs to be tackled, and I have a feeling that the authorities are now looking into that, for example. Q: You’re a member of a new board looking to create a road map for tourism in Iceland. How do you assess the government’s readiness to take a more active role in shaping the industry? A: The foreign currency situation in the country is now very strong. This, of course, was not the case after the crash. We have been the key factor in keeping the inflation low, so the economic impact of tourism in Iceland after the crash is incredible. At last, tourism is now being recognized, because we had to fight the politicians and the authorities to get them to understand what was happening. The government was just getting more and more revenue from tourism and they acted like they didn't know where it came from. Now I get the feeling that, for the first time this year, we really feel that the authorities are coming to an understanding of what's going on and everyone's getting on the same page. It's been quite difficult before to fight to get people to understand that this is reality, and that the public has been experiencing this on their own because of the jobs created, because a lot of people have been benefiting from tourism through Airbnb. Now people in the government are kind of getting to terms that this is happening, this is not going away, we have to deal with that and let’s do something about it.

Skúli Mogensen, CEO of Wow Air

Q: Wow Air has been growing steadily, piggybacking on the intense demand for tourism in Iceland. Do you think macroeconomic trends threaten what you’ve accomplished? A: I certainly hope not. Actually, it's interesting now with Brexit, this whole discussion of being in the EU or not in the EU. A few years back, there was a huge movement in Iceland that we should join the EU. I have never been in favor of that. Then, that same group said, ‘You're a nationalist and you're an isolationist,’ which I think is complete BS. I think on the contrary, Iceland's quite unique in that sense. We do not have an army. We have great alliances with pretty much everyone. We are part of NATO. We're obviously working very closely with the U.S., very closely with Europe. Whether we are in the EU or not doesn't really matter. Yes, it requires us to do slightly more independent agreements, but most of those are already in place. We have great relationships with China, with India, with Russia. Why do we manage to get these agreements? Because we are a teeny tiny nation and for whatever reason, most people like us. We're not offending anyone. We're not going to step on anybody's toes. Again, I see it as an opportunity to be open. I certainly think that we need to preserve and value certain things about Iceland. I think it's important to preserve our language, our culture, respect our nature, and very much like we expect Icelanders to respect those issues, so should any foreigner.

The government still has incentives to bring in more heavy industry, to bring in more aluminum plants, to bring in more silicon plants. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me because they do not really create anything of value here. Skúli Mogensen, CEO Wow Air

Q: Tourism has recently overtaken fishing and heavy industries as Iceland’s top industry. At the same time, tourism brings a bevy of environmental concerns with it. As the head of a rapidly growing airline, how do you think about preserving the environment? A: I've been very hopeful about the environment. This is talking and going back to the heavy industry people, of course, who use my planes against me, because I have said as a strategy, we are now as a country, incredibly fortunate to have the luxury of actually making a strategy saying that we're going to be the cleanest country in the world. We can be 100 percent renewable. We can be the first country in the world to ban gasoline cars, or reduce all plastic, or say it's all going to be renewable glass. At the same time, the government still has incentives to bring in more heavy industry, to bring in more aluminum plants, to bring in more silicon plants. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me because they do not really create anything of value here. They pollute. Both physically pollute but also just visually pollute the environment. Again, there's no value creation. These are relatively low-paying jobs they're just labor jobs. Basically, machinery. This is what I've been trying to tell you. Even if you're not an environmentalist, you just look at the economics, the economics of the situation today, if you're Iceland as a business. This piece of the equation doesn't belong here, it's obvious, both because of the environment, but also because of business resources. I think actually again if we would brand ourselves, I'm not saying tear them down and remove them tomorrow, but they all have X number of years on their energy contracts. Simply let them run out. Q: Overtourism is a major concern any time a country as small as Iceland experiences rapid tourism growth. Do you think the country should move to provide guidelines around tourism numbers? A: I think again, we as Icelanders, we are just so spoiled. We are used to having no one around us. As soon as one person is there, ‘Oh, it's crowded.' Second thing we are spoiled is to drive more than 10 minutes anywhere, it's like, ‘Oh, it's so far away.’ Compare this to America, where to drive for two, three hours is no big deal. We should market the airport, the airport peninsula, Blue Lagoon, Reykjavik, it's all one region here because they’re so close to each other anyway. We should expand our vision of what is the proximity around the airport.

Ólöf Ýrr Atladóttir, director general of the Icelandic Tourist Board

Q: What are your thoughts on overtourism, particularly with respect to the effects of tourism on native Icelanders? A: Yes, we've experienced an enormous growth. Yes, we have challenges. In some places, there are quite a lot of people at certain times during the day. Sometimes when there are lot of cruise ships, it can have a very overwhelming experience at these traditional Golden Circle sites and something like that. However, we've sponsored studies on carrying capacity among tourists themselves. It turns out that the group that is experiencing most congestion on these sites is Icelanders. In general, our visitors don't seem to experience the same sensation of overcrowding or congestion as we do. You could say that that points to us being worried about our visitor experience, which is nice because it means that everybody's still on board with us providing an exceptional experience. Also, because we are traditionally very few here in Iceland. We're really not used to a lot of people. Seriously. Q: Besides overcrowding, how do you think tourism has affected Icelandic society? A: Tourism, of course, puts a strain on society. It puts a strain on the public goods. I'm not saying strain in a negative way. I'm saying it has an impact on society and the people and the communities, on the public goods that they're providing, on the road system, on the health system, on the police system, on the educational system, on everything. Tourism has a tremendous possibility to change society. In the fisheries, you have to have vessels, you have to have some support from the government, you have to have the framework, and then it’s fine. With tourism, you have to have an organizational and structural change of basically everything that the public sector is doing. That's what we need to do, and that also means that it costs money. It's not as organic as we thought. The road system is expensive. Environmental conservation is very expensive and if you want to have real environmental conservation, you need people there, and you need much more people if you're going to have a million visitors than if you're going to have 100,000. Q: Let’s say that the government finally steps up to the plate in a real way. What kind of effect on society do you think tourism should have in Iceland? A: People are traveling as never before, and I think that will continue. Maybe it's just a change in human nature. A large percentage of mankind, they look upon traveling as something that you do. It's a right, almost. You eat, you sleep, you go to school, you travel. I don't think that will change so easily. That means that destinations, I'm not saying they should be picky in who comes, but they can set standards besides thinking, ‘What do I need to do for tourism so more people will come?’ which is the classical way of thinking. Then, ‘How can I minimize the negative impact of that?’ which is the classical way.

I'm not saying that every destination should try to be a luxury destination, not at all. Just say, ‘If you want to come here, this is what you need to do. This is how you need to think.’ Ólöf Ýrr Atladóttir, director general of the Icelandic Tourist Board

What effect do I want this industry to have on society? Beneficial. What negative effects could that incur and how can I work against that? We're not just thinking, ‘What do we need to do for tourism?’ To paraphrase Kennedy, we are thinking, ‘What can tourism do for us and what do we want that to do?’ I think destinations need to have this question at least on a side glance because, as I say, people will travel. They will travel and they will have different needs and they will have different wishes. Destinations can't specialize themselves and they can't become more picky. I'm not saying that every destination should try to be a luxury destination, not at all. Just say, ‘If you want to come here, this is what you need to do. This is how you need to think.’ Q: What about the possibility that the intense growth in tourism begins to tail off? A: We need to get out of this somewhat schizophrenic mindset that, as I say, at the same time as the governmentally run airport is growing and growing in some sort of inevitability theory, we're not focusing as much resources into the infrastructure and we haven't even decided how much do we want to grow. That's why we need to ask the critical questions about what do we want from tourism. We need to do that. We need to do that globally, also, because this is something that is not the private matter of individual countries, because tourists will have an environmental impact. They will have a cultural impact. Maybe we're just realizing now the full extent of what that means. That could be a good impact. It can also breed negativity and that's what we don't want.

Björn Ó. Hauksson, CEO of Isavia