How Justin Bieber Boosted And Busted Iceland's Economy Mike Rosenthal/Getty Images By Manuella Libardi/Feb. 26, 2021 7:09 pm EDT Justin Bieber seems to have a magnetic field around him that attracts controversy — even if it's unintentional. The pop star made headlines when Iceland decided to close its Fjadrárgljúfur canyon to tourists in 2019, reporting that an influx of visitors was putting the vulnerable landscape at risk, according to Game of Thrones, has a complicated relationship with tourism. On the one hand, its economy has come to rely heavily on it, as producer Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi said in a 2019 episode of NPR's The Indicator From Planet Money. On the other hand, the steep uptick in visitors Iceland has experienced in the past decade has led to environmental concerns. In 2019, more than 2.3 million tourists marveled at Iceland's unique landscapes, in contrast to 600,000 in 2011, an annual increase of 20%, according to