Sky Lagoon tops tourist attraction rankings over Hallgrímskirkja
Thursday 17th September 2026 on 13:01 in
Iceland
Sky Lagoon ranks as the most prominent attraction for tourists in both Google searches and artificial intelligence responses, according to a new Datera analysis reported by mbl.is.
The lagoon was mentioned in 60 percent of responses from artificial intelligence tools when results from the United States and the United Kingdom were combined. Hallgrímskirkja was second, appearing in 57.2 percent of responses, while Harpa ranked third with visibility of just over 51 percent.
Hjalti Már Einarsson, Datera’s chief executive, presented the analysis at the capital region’s tourism conference in Hlégarður on Wednesday.
The analysis examined nearly 2,700 responses from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. The same questions were put to each tool, phrased as if tourists were seeking advice on planning a trip. The questions did not name specific attractions or companies.
The responses were assessed from the perspective of tourists in the United States, the United Kingdom and Iceland. The ranking was based on combined results from the United States and the United Kingdom.
The 10 most visible attractions were Sky Lagoon, Hallgrímskirkja, Harpa, the Sun Voyager, Perlan, Grandi Harbour, Rainbow Street on Skólavörðustígur, the National Museum of Iceland, Tjörnin and Laugardalslaug.
Sky Lagoon also leads Google searches
Sky Lagoon also ranked first for Google search interest. It retained the top position from Datera’s previous analysis in 2023, although search interest had declined between the two studies.
This ranking was based on combined search interest in the United States and the United Kingdom, with searches in Iceland taken into consideration. Hallgrímskirkja ranked second and Harpa third.
The 10 most searched attractions were Sky Lagoon, Hallgrímskirkja, Viking Hotel Village in Hafnarfjörður, the Icelandic Phallological Museum, Hvammsvík, Perlan, Lava Show, FlyOver Iceland and Grótta Lighthouse.
Sky Lagoon also received the Höfuðkraftur 2026 tourism award at the conference.