November brought with it a remarkable increase in tourists to Iceland, leading us one step closer to the conclusion that there is no longer any such thing as an “off season” in Iceland.
RÚV reports that 131,700 tourists visited Iceland in November alone; 50,000 more than visited in November 2015, showing an increase of 61.4%.
Taking 2016 as a whole, the entire country has seen a 38% increase in tourists from last year. In all, some 1.6 million people visited in Iceland in 2016, comprising over five times the native population of the country.
Tourists to Iceland are a diverse lot, although most of them hail from either Europe or North America. In fact, Brits and Americans by themselves comprised about half of Iceland’s tourists last year.
Tourism is also increasing at different rates for different peoples. For example, while tourists as a whole have increased sixfold over the past six years, British tourists have increased ninefold and Americans, elevenfold. The smallest proportion of tourists to Iceland hail from other Nordic countries.
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