63.700 departures of foreign passengers in August

Departures of foreign passengers from Iceland via Keflavik airport were about 64 thousand in August, according to figures from the Icelandic Tourist Board, or less than 74.7 percent compared to the numbers in August 2019, when departures were 252 thousand. 

Decrease of departures by 67,4%

Since the beginning of the year, 451 thousand foreign passengers have departed from Iceland via Keflavík Airport, which is a decrease of 67,4% compared to the same period last year but then the total departures were 1.38 million. 

Huge decline in foreign visits

It is hardly necessary to say much about the reasons for the decline in the number of foreign visitors to the country in recent months, but ever since the effects of the Covid epidemic began to be felt, there has been a collapse in the number of departures, as can be seen from the table below. Thus, the year-on-year contraction was 53% in March, 99% in April and May, 97% in June, 80% in July and 75% in August.

Tourists by nationalities in August

Of each individual nation, most departures in August were due to Germans, but their departures were 10,693 or 50% less than in August last year. In second place were the Poles with about 9,000 departures, which were about as many as last year. Third were the Italians with roughly 7,700 departures which were 42,2% less than last year. Together the departures of these three nations were 42.6% of all foreign departures in August.

After that were departures of Danes (7.7%), British (7.4%), French (6.7%), Dutch (5.9%), Spanish (5.3%), Belgian (4.2) %) and Swiss (3.5%). In total, the departures of the ten largest nations were 83.3%

Icelanders' travels abroad

About 7,900 Icelanders went abroad in August or 83.7% less than in August 2019. Since the beginning of the year (January-August), about 116 thousand

Icelanders have gone abroad, but there are 300 thousand fewer departures than in the same period last year.

Further Information

Further division between nations can be seen in the table below.

Photo by Emma Francis on Unsplash