From Iceland — Tourists Spend Billions In Iceland

Tourists Spend Billions In Iceland

Published May 23, 2015

Andie Sophia Fontaine
Photo by
Matthew Eisman

Tourists in Iceland not only spent billions of ISK last April; their spending is also increasing.

Kjarninn reports that according to data compiled by the Centre for Retail Studies, tourists spent 9.3 billion ISK in April alone, and that’s only counting credit and debit cards. The spending is also a 39.4% increase from April 2014.

In terms of what tourists spend money on – and how much those types of spending have increased – the big winners were the tour guides. In all, 2.5 billion ISK were spent on tour guides, marking a 113% increase from the year previous. There was also a 37% increase in card-spending in hotels and guesthouses, with an additional 1.1 billion ISK was spent on rental cars and petrol.

1.2 billion ISK from tourists’ credit and debit cards was spent in Icelandic shops, up by 14% from last year. The most popular items bought in these shops were souvenirs, which comprised 43% of this spending.

In all, tourist card-spending for the first quarter of the year was up by 38% from last year.

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