Two hours from the unbelievable island: Coastal tourism in two local communities in Suðuroy, Faroe Islands

In this chapter, the opportunities and obstacles connected to the development of coastal tourism as a new business are discussed and analysed from a small-scale island society perspective. The island of Suðuroy in the Faroe Islands, an archipelago in the northeastern Atlantic, is the case of our study examining the role of infrastructure, innovation and economic restructuration in the planning and introduction of coastal tourism. The study from Suðuroy, which is based on interviews, surveys, and statistics, was part of a Nordic project (Norvalue) discussing resilient coastal communities in the Nordic Atlantic. In Suðuroy, a future subsea tunnel project connecting the relatively isolated island to the ‘mainland’ (the largest and most populous islands of the archipelago) is on everyone’s lips: will the tunnel pave the way for a stronger economy and facilitate the introduction of coastal tourism in Suðuroy? This chapter is drawing on a critical ’island studies’ perspective in its analysis of tourism development in the Faroe Islands.