The Icelandic tourism industry is recovering

The proportion of Icelandic tourists has decreased

Last summer, there were few foreign tourists on the move, but many more Icelanders. This summer, the proportion of foreign tourists has grown significantly. Foreign tourists behave differently when planning their summer vacation than Icelanders. They could be called Icelandic meteorologists as their travels are organized in line with the weather forecast and therefore slightly unpredictable.

Bookings have been successful at hotels in the North and foreign guests have again become the majority. Most are from countries where vaccination has come a long way and the biggest difference is between Americans.

Asians, and especially Chinese, were a large part of tourists in Iceland before the outbreak. Due to travel restrictions in many Asian countries and a weak exchange rate in vaccinations, bookings have not been received from Asia, but it is expected that this will change in the autumn.

Americans stand out

Bookings for whale watching have also been successful and this does not only apply to the North. The proportion of Icelandic tourists is lower than last summer when they were a large proportion of visitors to whale watching companies in the north.

In Reykjavík, almost exclusively foreign tourists go whale watching and the Americans are in the vast majority, or about 90%.

Employee problems

Recruitment is not going well and is actually more difficult than it was in 2019. Tourism companies often find that employees who have been hired do not show up for work. The Directorate of Labor has provided access to its lists of jobseekers, but many do not answer telephone calls or express a lack of interest in the jobs available.

The government, like last year, is working hard to get schoolchildren into summer jobs. Young people are offered a variety of jobs within the campaign and are therefore reluctant to work in sectors within the tourism industry.

It is obvious how much optimism there is in the tourism industry, but there is a great deal of fear of a setback in the epidemic.