Cruise ships could extend Iceland’s tourism season

Cruise ships could help extend Iceland’s tourism season and distribute visitors more evenly around the country, mbl.is reported. Sigurður Jökull Ólafsson, managing director of Cruise Iceland, said there were unused opportunities to develop northern lights cruises into the autumn and winter, as Norway has done.

He said this would require rebuilding voyages by expedition ships. Their duty-free status and exemption from value-added tax while operating in Iceland would also need to be maintained.

“That is very important, especially if we are going to maintain the stated goal of extending the tourism season and distributing tourists better around the country,” Ólafsson said.

For northern lights cruises to become viable, the ships would need to remain based in Iceland and operate circular routes. “Most likely, ships will not cross the Atlantic in November,” he said.

He said there were significant opportunities for ships to visit the Westfjords, northern Iceland and eastern Iceland in October and November, and possibly in March and April. However, the operating environment would have to be favourable. “It is complicated now. We simply need to fix this,” Ólafsson said.