Iceland’s Hotel Industry Harshly Criticised

A 3-star hotel in Iceland can cost the same as a 5-star hotel in Manhattan, while receiving lower customer ratings, says one tourism official.

MBL reports that Renato Gruenenfelder, the managing director of Guðmundur Jónasson Travel, had some choice words to share with attendees of a KPMG lecture on tourism earlier this week.

Renato asked attendees whether Iceland was indeed “best in the world” when it comes to tourism, citing a recent poll conducted within the hospitality industry that showed many considered Icelanders to be amongst the friendliest people they have met. He said he decided then to see whether that was also the case when it came to quality of service and the working conditions at hotels. The data he collected, he said, painted a much different picture.

Comparing Icelandic hotels to those hotels with the same number of stars in Copenhagen, Paris, Dubai, Paris, Rome, Beijing and New York, he found that in most cases, Icelandic hotels ranked lower when it came to conditions, service, and quality for the same amount of money.

Renato then answered his own question as to whether or not Iceland was “best in the world” when it came to tourist service: “Clearly not.”