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PINK ICELAND'S MISSION & RESPONSIBILITIES
Honesty Policy | Human Rights | Representation and Queer Values | Environmental Policies | Responsible Tourism | Guest Responsibilities

OUR MISSION
Pink Iceland strives to be the country’s foremost travel agent, tour operator, event and wedding planner for the LGBTQI community, their allies and kind people in general. Our goal is to always offer an exemplary service, treating our guests with the utmost respect while offering a good quality product. Pink Iceland has clear policies regarding its responsibilities to environmental and human and civil rights  issues. These are reflected in the services we offer and the general attitude of the company’s owners and staff.

 

Pink Iceland is, and will remain a beautiful, vibrant, fun and caring place of work where both owners and staff ambitiously work towards offering outstanding services to its guests.

 

HONESTY POLICY / COMMISSIONS

Pink Iceland is a privately owned company and as such it needs to make a profit. This profit pays the salaries of its staff, the rent, the wonderful and informative Pink Iceland website not to mention copious amounts of coffee for those who work there and our guests. Much of Pink Iceland's revenue comes through commissions. This is how it works: If our guests let us book their tours, activities, and accommodation we may sometimes receive a commission off what you would have been charged had you been directly in touch with the service provider. A service provider, including but not limited to Hotels, Tour Operators, Photographers, Djs, etc generally charge companies that bring repeat business to them less than those who may book with them only once. Pink Iceland receives these discounts (commissions) from most suppliers we work with. Service providers are generally happy about this arrangement as they know that it means we'll take care of communication and logistics, saving them time and effort. And while Pink Iceland benefits from this arrangement we promise to always do our best to come up with a plan that suits you, and your budget. We will never recommend any service or person without full confidence and/or personal experience of what's on offer. Our success is built on word of mouth and good relationships with our clients and collaborators and we feel it is important to to be honest this aspect of our business. 

 

HUMAN RIGHTS

We strive to to offer the best available services to our guests, working with suppliers who respect the human and civil rights we should all be afforded.

We have committed ourselves to contributing to the Queer community in whatever way we can. This has been done with monetary donations, education about what we've achieved in this country and how we went about it and through on-going volunteer work for Samtökin'78 the national LGBTQI organization as well as Reykjavik Pride where we've offered (and continue to offer) our time and expertise for various events and causes. Recently we've also started speaking at travel and wedding conferences around the world where we discuss the importance of value based business principles and how it makes sense both for businesses and the people who own or work for them. We constantly revise our policies, processes and activities and actively work towards implementing these. The above mentioned commitments are not undertaken to garner publicity unless where it may further a cause and will often go unnoticed.  If applicable we share updates through our social media outlets and website. 

REPRESENTATION AND QUEER VALUES

Pink Iceland is founded by lesbian couple and co-owned by a gay man. Full time staff consists of a total of 10,  mostly queer people and we try to direct business to and hire people from within out community.

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We use different words to describe the community we belong to. Gay, Lesbian, Queer, LGBT, LGBTQI, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIA+, etc. We use all of these terms to ensure we're easily found through online searches as different people search for different terms. The umbrella term in Iceland is 'hinsegin' a word that used to be derogatory but like in many other cultures a word that has been reclaimed and embraced by most of our community. At Pink Iceland we personally prefer to use 'queer' and 'hinsegin' as they feel the most inclusive but for practical reasons we try to use as many terms as possible across our platforms to ensure a broader reach.  

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We have a very strict policy of only using photographs from real tours and weddings, with real people who took part in said tours or weddings. A large part of our clientele consists of gay men, who, it must be said we owe much of our success to, love you boos!

 

This is a reflection of the world we live in. It showcases which part of our community has it best in terms of privilege, and quite frankly, disposable income. This reality is reflected in imagery we post and share. Our hope is that by consistently  working towards inclusivity and diversity in our services we will see this change and that we will be able to reach a more diverse demographic, i.e. people of colour, queer women and trans and non-binary people, to all of our benefit.

 

We know we're expensive and that its hard to believe that we subsidise our queer tours, some weddings and all our events but the fact is, we do. We do not do this begrudgingly but with pride that we are in a position to do so. If you can not afford our services please let us know, we want to be as inclusive as possible and not price members of our own community out of our services. 

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We, owners and staff at Pink Iceland, are aware of our privilege, of the fact that we lead lives that scores of our fellow queer people in the world can only dream about. We know we can't behave like any other company, that we have to always be better, more socially aware, active and responsible. We don't always get it right. We've screwed up in the past and will probably do so again, but when we have, the community has pointed this out to us and we've done our best to right our wrongs. 

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Our weddings, due to their nature and history of this patriarchal institution and the fact that many of our clients identify within a gender binary means that much of the content we put out into the world celebrates a societal structure many do not feel includes them. If this applies to you, please know that there is no ill intent or ulterior motive in trying to force a binary / heternormative or even homonormative standard on the lives of queer people. We wholeheartedly celebrate, support and stand with all of the queer community. 

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We'd like like to respectfully suggest that those who have an issue with our work, about who we are as individuals or what we stand for get in touch. If the intent of raising an issue with Pink Iceland, or one of us individually is to implement changes that benefit our community we want to hear it and we want to do better.  We are proud of what we've achieved, we are proud to have a company led and staffed by people from the LGBTQ+ community. We are by no means above criticism, nor is our support given to absolve us from responsibility to that community.

 

If however you have any issues with how what we stand for, or have comments on how any of us personally present in terms of gender or sexuality you can email: keep_it_to_yourself@itsnoneofyourbusiness.org

​ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

Tourism is believed to contribute up to 1/10 of greenhouse gas emissions. This is unsustainable and we must all do what we can to combat this. We here at Pink Iceland do our very best to reduce the amount of carbon we release into the atmosphere in addition to adhering to rigorous environmental and sustainability guidelines where we work towards reducing waste, recycling and reusing whatever we can.  We calculate the carbon footprint of our entire operation, including our own travel to and from work and all our own international travel. We have offset this footprint in the past but our plan moving forward is to do so at least 2-4 times over in an effort to not only become carbon neutral, but carbon negative. 

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We would like to stress that we don't believe in 'greenwashing' ourselves out of this problem by simply planting some trees. We really work hard to reduce our footprint to make sure that despite our growth as a company our carbon footprint decreases year on year. 

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Pink Iceland's sustainability policy is by no means an endpoint but rather a stepping-stone on the long journey to lower our environmental impact and reinforce the local community. This policy is revised annually and updated according to possible internal and/or external changes. 

WE PROUDLY SPONSOR:
RESPONSIBLE TOURISM

Pink Iceland is proud to be among the companies that have signed a declaration on responsible tourism in Iceland. ​The purpose of the incentive project is to maintain Iceland‘s status as an optimal future destination for tourists by supporting sustainability for future generations of the nation. 

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The goals of Festa the Icelandic Tourist Cluster’s promotional efforts are to:

  • Establish a clear message from companies that they strive to be responsible.

  • Highlight examples of good practice in sustainability and social responsibility in tourism.

  • Provide an incentive to companies that have yet to consider sustainability practices and social responsibility.

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The owners and staff of Pink Iceland have set the following goals in regards to responsible tourism:

 

Ensure our guests safety and treat them with respect

 

  • By training and educating our staff and our tour guides we can help to ensure our guests safety.

  • We have set goals and we work by them.

  • We have a set of codes and guidelines for each of our tours.

  • We recieve training in First Aid, with revisions every 2 years.

  • We keep our guests informed of how they can help us with conservation of nature both on our website and in our information .booklet that we have with us on our tours.

 

We respect the rights of our employees

 

  • Annual employee reviews and bimonthly status meetings.

  • We update our employee handbook annually, which is a great tool when training new members of staff.

  • We work by our Pink Iceland purchasing policy which emphasises the importance of choosing our partners/suppliers that follow the same guidelines as we do. We choose partners that work by our quality-, environmental- and ethical standards.

  • We choose to work with environmentally certified services and products.

 

We aim to have a positive effect on our local community

 

  • We try our best to work with local products and services. When planning our weddings, for example, we always try to use local services (ie. Priests, hairdressers, drivers and musicians) as much as we can.

  • We use Icelandic products in all of our tours and weddings whether it is donuts, chocolate or music.

  • Our main focus is on the LGBTQI+ community. We are proud sponsors of Reykjavík Pride, Samtökin ’78 (The National LGBT+ Association),  Q – Queer Student Association of Iceland, The Queer Choir, DragSúgur, drag performance group, Estranged magazine and queer musicians.

  • All of our bottles and cans that can be returned for recycling for a deposit are donated to the local Scouts which have set themselves a goal of working against homophobia within their movement.

  • As our main emphasis is on the human rights of LGBTQI+ people, we have also sponsored international projects which emphasize that queer solidarity should be realized universally .

  • It is in the DNA of our company to enhance our guests experiences by giving them information about their surroundings.

  • Pink Iceland hosts numerous events which we try to encourage the queer family to take part in, ie. Rainbow Reykjavík – Winter Pride, Pink Parties and our bimonthly free Pop-up Hygge cozy concerts at the office. 

 

We aim to respect and preserve nature

 

  • Pink Iceland recycles all trash accumulated within the company, including biodegradable waste, paper, plastic, glass and metals

  • Bottles and cans are donated to the Green Scouts, which return them for recycling for a deposit.

  • All other trash is taken to recycling centres and sorted into respective containters.

  • The employees at Pink Iceland are encouraged to bring their biodegradable waste to work as we have a specail bin for this waste at our office.

  • We usereusable coffee filters and the coffee grounds get a new life as a face scrub – that’s why we all look so good!

  • All cleaning products used by Pink Iceland are environmentally certified.

  • All paper (including copy paper, serviettes and toilet paper) bears the Nordic Swan Ecolabel

  • We mostly use water for cleaning purposes.

  • We buy as little as possible in small packages, ie. Our donuts are bought straight from the supplier and come in big packaging

  • We measure the amount of fossil fuels we are using and carbon offset our tours by taking part in the Kolviður project. We're looking into other carbon offset programs to double our efforts as well as being on the hunt for a zero-emission vehicle to use on our tours.

  • 99% of our promotional material is digital

  • We only have one printed brochure, which is printed at a Nordic Swan certified printers on environmentally certified paper.

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Pink Iceland works based on the The United Nations' Sustainable Development goals with a special focus on:

  • #5 Gender equality

  • #8 Decent work and economic growth

  • #9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure

  • #10 Reduced inequalities

  • #12 Responsible consumption & production

  • #13 Climate action

  • #15 Life on land

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GUEST RESPONSIBILITIES

Please help us by observing the following:

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  • Please dress according to weather. Wear appropriate shoes, bring a hat, mittens and a scarf if you can.

  • Download the Emergency App, 112

  • Please follow the guide's instructions regarding safety and environmental issues

  • Keep your seatbelt on whenever the vehicle is moving

  • Please respect restrictions, rules & boundaries set at each destination

  • Please keep to marked footpaths when requested

  • Please do not leave litter at destinations unless there are appropriate containers

  • Please ask your guide to take care of litter you can’t find a suitable home for.

  • Please do not throw cigarette stubs away. Ask your guide for a portable ashtray.

  • Please be aware that damage to rock and moss formations can not be repaired

  • Please respect private property, cross fences with care and close gates behind you

  • Please avoid disturbing or feeding animals

  • We encourage you to refill your bottle with tap water.

 

Keep in mind that much of our nature is exceptionally fragile. If we treat it with care, it will remain a source of fun and wonder for all of us and countless generations to come.

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