If the situation remains unchanged, the BSÍ bus terminal—a major transport terminal in Reykjavík, in particular for buses shuttling tourists to and from the city—will close after the weekend due to a lack of customers, RÚV reports.
Björn Ragnarson, the managing director of tour bus company Kynnisferðir, told reporters that he is still holding out hope that the Minister of Tourism will initiate actions that back up a ministerial memo, which states amongst other things that special operations will be needed to keep tourism industry companies afloat. Group tour companies are mentioned especially in this memo, as it states that these companies did not really gain much of anything from the relaxing of the borders last June.
“But this certainly comes a bit late,” Björn told reporters. “The damage is done, we’re seeing a lot of cancellations from tourists and customers, and certainly a tremendous decrease in tourists.”
Björn expressed puzzlement with the border restrictions that were initiated last spring, saying, “We saw last spring that the chief epidemiologist said there was a very small chance of contracting [the virus] from tourists. And we have seen that infections from tourists have been insignificantly few. We wanted to see other regulations for tourists.”
Kynnisferðir owns BSÍ, and business there has been slowed to a trickle.
“BSÍ has been open almost every single day since 1965,” Björn said. “But there are almost no customers. So this tourism business is finished for now, unfortunately.”
Björn added that he still hopes the government opens things up again, and that tourists begin returning to Iceland anew.
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