Iceland's Tourism Revolution 

"Iceland's Tourism Revolution" *puts on glasses* _basically planes_

Lazy Town was an Icelandic Show that aired in 2004. Around the same time, the Icelandic Economy skyrocketed. Coincidence? I think not.

Topic: Iceland Wendover: Let's talk about Iceland Air.

Iceland: “What doesn’t kill you makes you more economically viable”

I got to 11 minutes before realising this was just another video about planes... I'm happy with that

How people see Iceland: Me: "An island, a nation, vikings." Wendover: "It's planes of course!"

Planes: *exist* Wendover: I'm about to talk about this man's whole career

“Iceland lost the 2016 Euros” *Haha yeah but not before knocking out England*

god I love when foreigners attempt to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull

I see Iceland. I click.

As a person who lived in Iceland for 3 years, I'll tell you the drop off is because Iceland is getting too expensive

So go to Newfoundland instead.

Me: 2 minutes in and no mention of airplanes? Nice. 20 seconds later... Wendover: "Iceland has a fairly large airline..." Me: Ah shit. Here we go again...

Countries investing in tourism Coronavirus: *Im going to end this whole man’s career*

You say that Iceland lost EURO 2016 but you forgot to mention that they knocked out England and make Roy Hodgson resign. I still get flashbacks.....

Iceland: *on economic recession* Volcano: I'm gonna start this man's whole career

Gets notification from Wendover, starts watching the video, waiting for the mention of an airplane.

lol nice try with Eyjafjallajökull :D greetings from Iceland nice vid

Iceland's Tourism Revolution *#49 ON TRENDING FOR GAMING* makes sense

I'm only going to see the statue and memorial of Stefan Karl Stefanson. Always Number One.

4:30 Many have tried, few succeded. Eyjafjallajökull remains a challenge.

Besides tourism, Iceland's renewable energy is a huge commodity and it is a bummer Wendover skipped right over it. Iceland runs almost completely on hydro and geothermal energy and is using it to entice manufacturers to move to Iceland and utilize the cheap energy for industries like aluminum smelting.

The team lost????? No. They beat England 2-1 and got to the group stages! "The team lost"

Wendover productions:talks about the tourism industry of Iceland 🇮🇸 Also Wendover productions: *STILL* *MENTIONS* *PLANES*

Banking sector crash Enormous Vocano errupt Losing the Euro Cup: "I'm gonna end this country whole career" Iceland: "iT'S fReE AdVertIsing"

planes, economies, logistics and planes, are what makes this channel plane brilliant.

#1 ON TRENDING in Iceland, Congratulations.

1:09 GDP Per Capita in $Bilions... Damn their economy must be good

Greatings from Iceland I think Iceland is just falling out of fasion. The tourist numbers were increasing but the tourists stayed for fewer days and were poorer than the years before. 2015 and 2016 were probably the best tourist years, also because a lot of movies and tv shows were being shot in Iceland and the film industry skyrocketed. But 2017 and 2018 have been a downfall ever since. But I don't think that prices have inflated that much in the last few years. To those who want to come to Iceland, please treat our nature with care and dont stop on the middle of the road to take pictures. This is a serious problem in Iceland and we truly hate tourist that stop in the middle of the road to take pictures.

Iceland football team between 2016-2018 was a fairytale no one will forget.🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸 Grettings from Sweden🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪

Eyjaflatjajökukuch Atleast there was an attempt at pronunciation

After the collapse of WOW i was waiting for when planes will be mentioned in this video. I didn't have to wait long.

Game of Thrones probably also had an impact popularizing Iceland.

Icelandic tourism is dying because everything is expensive as heck!

DONT TOUCH THE MOSS YOU ARE KILLING IT Also, 12:14 aiports l00l

Iceland is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful countries in the world.Everyone should go there at least once in their lifetime.

Been to iceland in 2012. The most beautiful place on earth

Slowdown year over year, eh? *Covid19 enters chat*

Finally! A video about my wonderful country- It's just planes.

Yeah, there's just one problem with the UAE as a tourist destination... It's religiously derived laws are terrifying, and it's super-easy to get in trouble for things you generally wouldn't think of in a western nation. It gets vastly worse than that if you're part of the LGBT community though; I had basically no option but to transfer flights in Dubai, and that was one of the most tense experiences I've ever had in an airport, just because in the back of my head I wasn't sure if I could be picked up randomly and... Well, let's just say that LGBT people have been stripped naked and publicly humiliated before being thrown in prison at dubai, at the airport. - not during transfers, thankfully, but if you actually tried to enter the country... Yeah. That... I mean, it isn't conducive to tourism, that's for sure. XD Of course, they ARE aware of some of the tourism related stumbling blocks that their culture presents, which is why there are areas of dubai where foreigners are allowed to drink alcohol, even though that's otherwise illegal in the country... But still... Tourism becomes more challenging the more people are scared of your country/culture/people/etc.

Wendover: *ok its no biggie its just a word right?* eyjaflallajokukk Iceland: well at least you tried, it's Eyjafjallajökull

You posted this just before my geography exam where it is a topic :)

Dear humans of 2019, If you think the numbers at 12:30 are bad, just wait for 2020...

The biggest issue with future Icelandic tourism, as far as I can see, is that it's very expensive. Everyone I've spoken to that's been has commented on how expensive the food and accommodation there is. A pizza in Reykjavik, for example, can cost almost twice as much as a pizza from a city in the UK. That's not necessarily a barrier to tourism, but it does discourage repeat visits. Everyone I've spoken to has said it's a beautiful country, but no one I know has visited more than once. That's likely the cause for the boom and subsequent recession of their tourism in my opinion - why spend another weekend in Iceland when you could have two weeks of sunshine in Portugal for the same price?

Over tourism can kill a tourist destination. The problems of Iceland are happening in New Zealand where there alot of tourists crowding a over stretched tourism infrastructure. The problem with Iceland and the same in New Zealand, has lead to a rush off tourists, leading to cheap supermarket dirty tourism where the financial yield in tourism products and services are too small to cover re-investment in tourism infrastructure. Both Iceland and New Zealand needs to have sustainable eco-friendly tourism offering quality products and services that generate a good financial yield for the country without the placing the burden on the respective countries tax payers and up setting the locals.

Me and the boys when we see Wendover upload a video: It's time for *T O Y O T A C O R A L L A S*

They should invest in sea cables to the US/CA and the EU and become a big IT player. They have the best resources to cool down servers in an environmental friendly way.

Fun fact: This is a video about Iceland

I live in Delaware and we suffer from a very similar issue. Delaware was a very quiet, very isolated and very poor state for a long time. Then starting in the 80s, tourism started growing. Fast forward to the 2010s, hurricane Sandy hit and millions of people came from surrounding states. Now those people are choosing to stay here, prices skyrocketed, population boomed with retirees and all the jobs are service industries. Locals can barely afford to live while the retirees and expats that were tourists can easily afford everything here.

I am a two time visitor to Iceland in 2014 and 2018. The difference in tourist hordes between these years was tremendous and made Reykjavik completely unenjoyable for me last time I was there. While I would not wish anything bad on the country, I do hope the drop in tourism will allow the Icelanders to better preserve their nature and maybe allow tourists looking for seclusion in Iceland's wilderness (myself included) more tranquility. I hope to visit again some day and really go off the beaten trail. Thank you Wendover for reviving some of my best memories.

Dude, just change your channel name to "Fun with planes". lol

I’ll never forget Iceland during the 2016 Euro championship, they were phenomenal and their clapping changed the game to the point where everyone copied it!

I did my masters thesis about travel writers in Iceland during the 19th century. There was a growing interest from travelers already during 1760s. Geysirs, Hekla, Thingvalla and other main sights became tourists sights back then. From 1760s to 1820s there was a steady trickle of travelers and traveling pioneers after that there was a little bit of break until the trickle started again and in the 1860s the true saga tourism started in Iceland and the amount of travelers exploded from before. Of course other than travel writers there were a lot of other travelers. For example tourists, fishermen, naturalists, merchants, french military and so on. My thesis was about Ida Pfeiffer, Pliny Miles, Lord Dufferin and Sabine Baring-Gould who all traveled to Iceland between 1845-1863. If anybody is interested in further reading I suggest Andrew Wawns The Vikings and the Victorians: Inventing the Old North in Nineteenth-century Britain and Arnold Bartons Northern Arcadia: Foreign Travelers in Scandinavia, 1765-1815. I understand why in this video they say that Iceland was an afterthought fifty years ago, but I would like to make an argument that there was quite a bit of excitement over the island before that. Especially when it got linked to sagas and edda. During the 19th century travelers also liked to distance themselves from tourism by going to places like Iceland which weren't fit for a dandy tourist.

How many planes are there in Iceland?

So, Iceland had unrestrained financial capitalism leading to a very severe hit by the crisis of 2008.... ...And here's advertising a course to help you get into this sector! O_O

Me: what's in the center of the earth? Wendover Productions: Ah, let's see! Yep..... an airplane

Tourism saved Iceland after the 2008 financial crisis, but was about to drown us 10 years later. Then came the Coronavirus pandemic - we suddenly have our country back! True, a lot of investors went bananas, there was a gold rush in the hotel and tourism industry and many of them will go under. Well, if you fly high you have far to fall. The entire world is in for a rough and uncertain ride for the next couple of years. We will never go completely "back to normal" again, which will probably count as a good thing in a decade or so. Let's hope for a more moderate, well, everything, when the the storm blows over...

I went to Iceland,with my grandfather as he used to live there.

"Today's trends will be tomorrow's memory and just as soon the tourism industry can explode, it can implode." OMFG you knew about the COVID -19 before it happend.

More and more young people are traveling. Mostly backpackers, i even plan to travel Iceland but the thing is its so expensive .

Absolutely butchered “Eyjafjallajökull” 😂😂 if you say “I feel like a yoghurt” fast and as one word over and over it’ll start to sound like it 😂 pro tip

McDonald’s couldn’t win Iceland but Hatari did

A video about tourism and somehow still manage to slip some airplanes in it. *THAT'S WHY WENDOVER IS THE REAL MPV*

A possible theory for the decline in tourists visiting Iceland (as sad as it may sound): there a "Seen it. Next!" mentality, I think at play. I was there last year and the amount of people (yes myself included but not as bad as I'm about to make out) who just took photos and selfies at every opportunity was phenomenal. So once people got their photos and moved on (sometimes without even stopping to really LOOK at where they are) they're off to some other spot for another great selfie/photo opportunity. I think there's a "hurry" with tourism today where people just want to be seen to be seen, and therefore when they've been somewhere, there's no incentive to go back. This is also exists for anything (and before smartphones): you don't go to the same restaurant every night so you probably won't visit the same destination every time. Iceland's geographic "isolation" doesn't help. It's not like living in Europe, or Asia, where visiting the neighbouring country is easier, cheaper, and quicker to do on a whim.

Oh my. Such a well researched documentary matched with a good speaker. Never regretted to be a subscriber. Thank you!

I guess the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" contributed something to Iceland's tourism.

I visited Iceland in September of 2017. I drove around the whole country, it was an incredible experience. Even in the "off" season, there was a fuckton of people everywhere, so I can't even imagine what the summers were like.

Wendover "It all comes back to air travel" Productions.

I so so glad the im from Iceland i love my cotorey🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸🇮🇸

From one Icelandic citizen: Thanks Wendover for credible coverage

Literally just got back from my trip from Iceland last night!! Great video as always. Definitely recommend visiting!!

Well, trends are changing all the time and probably the next tourism revolution in Europe will happen in the Faroe Islands or Greenland if any of them lower their flight’s prices

Finally, a video about Iceland from someone who knows something about Iceland!

Iceland's tourism just collapsed a yesr before everyone elses. Gotta stay ahead of the curve

Great country, but definitely to expensive. About the cheapest place to eat was a hotdog stand selling $5 USD hotdogs. They were fantastic, just unbelievably expensive. I imagine that sticker shock of food prices got around and kept some from revisiting.

As a born and raised Icelander, this video has my approval! Very well presented and reletable on the overtourism part.

this didn't age well

Iceland and many of these 'trendy' tourism destinations seem like place most people visit only once, so its natural that it would die down after most European and wealthy Asian tourists already visited. Compared to say Spain or France, who are visited by millions of Brits, Germans and other neighboring countries each year, providing some stability.

Iceland is truly a gorgeous country. Fire & Ice baby!

Another big problem Iceland has in relation to tourism is that tourists are starting to stay for much shorter time periods, and they don't really leave the höfudborgarsvædi, or really just the southwest region of the country. While this is great for southwesterners, tourism is declining faster in the north and especially the east. Also Wendover, you really shouldn't have tried to pronounce Eyafjallajökull and Keflavík without at least looking up the prononciation.

>All of the nations that hit it big with oil understood that they were going to have to diversify their economies if they wanted to survive in a post-oil world I think you're forgetting someone...

South pole as an extreme example? Pfff (takes out the map of the galaxy cluster).

It’s a miracle that this was uploaded when I was on the internet! Also you have 2 million subscribers now! And again you managed to get planes in it again! (2:23) And economy! And a lot more!

50 years ago Iceland wasn’t a very important or big country, and yet they beat Britain three times in three undeclared wars.

Please do Canada's geography problem!!!!!

This guy’s segue into his ad for Brilliant at the end was smooth as glass.

Went to Iceland in 2017 for a month. Bought some milk, same brand, same store but different prices every effing week. Too expensive.

I really like Iceland, they don't just do frozen food these days they also do general groceries and they also deliver which is great if you don't have a car...well someone had to make this joke, lol.

A video not about planes. Is everything okay?

dont ever go to iceland ... unless you are rich that country is ridiculously expensive

im waiting for him to say how game of thrones affect iceland tourism

Read the title as “Iceland’s Terrorism Revolution”....

Glad to see long-ish videos again. Recently the videos have been so short and rushed it almost seemed like you just want to get to talk about your sponsors and get it over with

Tourism is not stable, as long as nothing happens they should be fine. **Knock Knock** It’s COVID-19

8:17 look at my home city (in east Asia) and realize that all 4 airlines mentioned fly there Me: wait that’s illegal

An excellent overview. Surprisingly accurate. I see in some of the comments that people are surprised that this talks so much about airliners. As an Icelander, I can appreciate the importance of air travel to our economy. Tourism has become bigger than any other industry. The runner ups being fishing and aluminum manufacturing. An airline of only 10 planes going bust was a national crisis. I guess it is hard for people of larger countries to realize this.

Bjork and Sigur Ros changed EVERYTHING

Could Greenland copy this?

First 1.42 mins shows how deregulation and privatisation are problematic when not handled properly.

An update on this post COVID would be great!