Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2010 has named Iceland among the top ten Best Value destinations for tourists.
According to their website, Iceland was considered a best value primarily because of the collapse of the currency. Longtime budget traveler favorites Thailand and Mexico also made the list, but this year also saw the surprising inclusion of Las Vegas and London. Both cities have been rendered more affordable recently, due to the global economic crisis.
Apparently the world’s tourists are already in agreement with Lonely Planet – according to RÚV, 2009 marks a record year for tourism, with some 440,000 tourists having visited the town in the first nine months of this year alone. Hotel stays have also gone up by 3%, tourists buy more expensive products in greater quantities, and may have spent all of 4 billion ISK (just over 32 million USD) this year.