December Hotel Stays Up 36% From Last Year

Hotel stays for just the month of December last year were up 36% from the same time last year, data from Statistics Iceland shows.

According to their findings, a total of 181,900 nights in hotels were booked in December 2015 alone. 2,815,900 nights were booked in all for 2015, showing an increase of 22% from 2014.

Of those who booked a hotel room in December, 89% of the guests hailed from abroad, in numbers 44% greater than they were in December 2014. Icelandic guests, by contrast, decreased by 3% during the same period.

Most of these hotel stays were in the capital area, and have increased by 35% compared to December 2014 numbers. Most of these tourists hailed from Britain, followed by the United States and Germany.

As reported, the total number of tourists to Iceland crossed the 1.3 million mark last year, more than four times the actual population of the country. Furthermore, it is predicted this number will triple over the next four years alone.