After moving in front of Iceland’s lucrative fishing industry to become the country’s largest export industry two years ago, tourism retained its status as the largest source of income last year.
National statistics office Hagstofa Islands published figures showing that tourism-related business recorded sales of 304bn krona last year – 27bn krona more than in 2013. Two years ago, tourism sales were just two per cent above fishing sales, but that gap was almost 25 per cent in 2014, primarily due to the huge rise in visitors travelling to the scenic North Atlantic island.
Nearly half the industry revenue was brought in by airfare, while 158bn krona went directly into hotels, restaurants and other service providers. The number of visitors is again expected to increase over the course of 2015, with more than a million tourists to touchdown in the country for the first time ever.
The large increase in visitors to Iceland since the 2008 economic crash has been a huge boost for the country, although some conservationists, businesses and lawmakers have highlighted that there could be a negative side to such a rise.
However, travel industry group SAF managing director Helga Arnadottir explained that the industry continued to diversify in order to be able to handle the increase in tourists, so growth would still be possible in the future. She explained that global tourism was on the rise, especially in northern Europe, so it was important to evolve to survive.