Tourism boom in Iceland
ICELAND is going through a tourism boom. For European and North American travellers in particular, the country’s rugged nature and majestic scenery has made it into a top destination for adventurous tourists in recent years.
But is it getting to be too much of a good thing on the island? At the recent ITB tourism trade fair in Berlin, Germany, Sigridur Ragnarsdottir from Visit Iceland told dpa about how the country is dealing with its newfound status as a holiday hotspot.
dpa: Is overtourism a problem in Iceland at the moment? Ragnarsdottir: No, it’s not a problem. Eight years ago there was very little tourism in Iceland.
In 2008, for example, we had a total of only 500,000 tourists. Now we have 2.2 million per year, and it has become a yearround industry.
Iceland is a big island and, on average, we have about 50,000 tourists per day, so that’s no comparison to the cities that are currently discussing the issue of overtourism. dpa: How many holidaymakers visit during the winter months? Ragnarsdottir: Of the 2.2 million travellers who visited Iceland in 2017, 1.4 million came in the months from September to May, during the Icelandic winter and the tourist off-season.
The largest increase in tourists occurred in the winter months, when tourists used to never come. Iceland in the summer and Iceland in the winter are two different worlds.
The people who come in winter want to experience the culture, the northern lights and the snow. Iceland is a mysterious country in winter.
dpa: How many tourists can Iceland handle per year? Ragnarsdottir: We still have plenty of capacity. In our marketing materials, we emphasise that you can travel across all the regions of Iceland.
In remote areas, where there are still relatively few travellers coming, tourism is very important for the people there to get by. So more tourists are always quite welcome there. – dpa