Iceland stars in Rhode Island tourism video

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Maybe the state should be called Rhode Iceland.

Rhode Island officials yanked a new tourism video, designed to draw visitors to the state, off YouTube in embarrassment on Tuesday after eagleeyed viewers complained it showed a scene shot in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik.

The state’s economic development agency, the Rhode Island Commerce Corp., confirmed the goof and blamed an editing company.

The state released the video at a meeting on Monday night and posted it online Tuesday for a new campaign.

The video’s intro features a skateboarder outside a glass building and has a narrator saying, “Imagine a place that feels like home but holds enough uniqueness that you’re never bored.”

People on social media said: Hey, that’s not Rhode Island — that’s the Harpa concert hall and conference centre in Reykjavik.

Designer Greg Nemes visited Iceland in October and said he recognized the photogenic building, which has a steel framework and an exterior skin of differently coloured glass panels.

“It was pretty unmistakable to me, so I did some digging around and posted on Facebook about it,” he said.

Social media users agreed with him, posting side-by-side photos of the building in the Rhode Island ad and Harpa.

Early Tuesday, the Rhode Island Commerce Corp.’s art director said he could “assure that all shots” were in Rhode Island. But later Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the agency confirmed that the building in the state’s tourism ad is Harpa and said an editing company used the wrong footage.

“As the Commerce Corporation put this presentation video together, explicit instructions were given to the local firm that helped with editing to use only Rhode Island footage,” spokeswoman Kayla Rosen said in an email. “A mistake was made. Once the mistake was identified, the video was removed.”