Organizers of SnowGathering, an adult film industry conference, decided to cancel the conference yesterday, which was to be held in Iceland next month, after the Radisson SAS Saga Hotel canceled their bookings. 

“If we weren’t going to commit a crime in this country, then why should we have been outlawed? This doesn’t make any sense,” Cristina Ponga, a SnowGathering organizer, told mbl.is.

She added that she suspected the owners of the hotel had subdued to pressure and that she did not expect any other hotel to welcome the SnowGathering attendees.

“FreeOnes.com cannot support or understand the decision taken by the hotel since we have done our utmost to comply with all the wishes and demands requested by the hotel after the whole media explosion,” Ponga wrote in a statement on SnowGathering’s website.

“Legal assistance has been sought in this matter since FreeOnes.com believes the cancellation and the consequent financial losses (both material and time-wise) have been carried out without any legitimate or legal grounds,” she added.

Director of the Radisson SAS Saga Hotel Hrönn Greipsdóttir said revoking the decision of receiving the SnowGathering attendees had been necessary due to opposition from the public and authorities, as Fréttabladid reports.

“It is clear that those who work in the tourist industry here are faced with difficulties if they have to evaluate and categorize tourists who come here even if nothing illegal has occurred,” said Erna Hauksdóttir, managing director of the Icelandic Travel Industry Association.

RÚV reported yesterday that guests staying at the Radisson SAS Saga Hotel can purchase access to pornographic material that they can watch in their hotel rooms and raised the question as to why guests are not allowed to talk about pornography.

Greipsdóttir said offering guests the opportunity to watch adult films in their hotel room is a service offered at all hotels in the Radisson SAS hotel chain. But now Saga Hotel is considering whether it can be exempt from that rule, she added.

“We are very satisfied with this result,” Gudrún Jónsdóttir, spokesperson for Stígamót (the Icelandic Counseling and Information Center for Survivors of Sexual Violence) told Morgunbladid.

Katrín Anna Gudmundsdóttir, spokesperson for the Feminist Movement in Iceland, said: “We feel this is a great victory for the liberation of the sexes and it is very good to see the nation unite in rejecting pornography.”

Click here to read more about SnowGathering and here to read a statement from a conference attendee.