Victorious Iceland comes in from the cold

The number of people searching the internet to discover the geographical whereabouts of our national football team’s vanquishers surged this week.

Statistics from Google Trends show that “where is Iceland” soared as a search term on Monday night when the Icelandic football team beat England 2-1, knocking them out of Euro 2016.

That England lost to the near-Arctic minnows is no more surprising than people querying where the country is, given that the island is expecting yet more record-breaking visitor numbers this year.

Iceland notched up 1.3million visits in 2015, a figure that has more than tripled since 2000 and is likely to rise again for 2016. What’s more, the UK provides the most visitors – 147,000 last year, a 35 per cent rise on 2014.

Next Saturday will see the British exploration of the country extend yet further, with the launch of the firstever direct flights from the UK to Egilsstadir in the east of Iceland (from Gatwick, by Discover the World), shifting the visitor focus away from the south-west, the Golden Circle and the tiny capital of Reykjavik to the East Fjords, a scattering of fishing villages and an even more remote, rugged landscape.

Through football or travel, the number unaware of Iceland’s location will this year grow ever smaller. homes without first registering with the authorities. Under the new rules, due to come into effect this month, the company will be fined $1,000 (£740) a day for every unregistered host using the site in the West Coast city.

Airbnb, founded and based in San Francisco and valued at $25.5billion, is seeking an injunction against the legislation, which it says violates federal law protecting internet privacy. The city says it is regulating business activity not user content.

San Francisco joins New York, Iceland and Berlin in acting to limit Airbnb’s reach.