I think it would be ideal for my last blog to be about
Iceland, as most of my blogs are about Iceland. This time I would like to focus
on one specific industry, the tourist industry.
There are two industries in Iceland that have benefited from
the weakening of the Icelandic Króna. Those are the fishing industry and the
tourist industry. Historically Iceland is a fishing nation and fish was its
main export-product until 2009 when aluminium took over. On the other side the
tourist industry is a lot smaller and represents 5% of Iceland’s GDP. Iceland
has for a long time been known for a tourist destination, but always as really
expensive. In 2008 the currency weakened by almost 50% which gave the tourist
industry an endless amount of opportunities.
In 2010 everyone where expecting Iceland’s tourist industry
to have a record year as the infrastructure was good, the economy was stable
again and the currency still weak. Then a volcano called Eyjafjallajökull
erupted which resulted in the largest air-traffic shut-down since World War II.
That resulted in a lot of negative publicity for Iceland, and the Icelandic
airport had to be closed several times during the eruption which resulted in
many cancelations on tourist activities for a whole month.
Iceland has had an enormous amount of publicity through news
all over the world; first for the collapse of the banking system and then for
Eyjafjallajökull. In order to try to change the image of Iceland the Ministry
of Tourism and the private sector launched an advertisement campaign during the
summer of 2010. The campaign was really successful and showed how a small
economy can be more flexible than a big economy. The nation came together and
helped out in advertising and changing the image of their own country.
Now the tourist industry is going well and doing well and it
looks like next year could be the best one ever. Airlines, like Easy Jet,
have added Iceland to their destinations which give travellers more options and
often cheaper prices.
Let’s go to Iceland! -
Further Reading:
Pictures:
http://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/school/export/sites/dtw/images/gallery/iceland/gn-northern-lights-horses.jpg_846788503.jpg
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