Reykjavik - Already at the international airport make the Icelanders from her great distress as a virtue. "Are you because of the nature or because of the exchange rate here?", Says on an advertising board. It should be because of low prices and not be ashamed before the start of the holiday but ask nicely in the duty-free shop oneself.
Americans, Britons, Danes and Germans themselves especially when beer cans, which are cheaper by half than in the rest of the country. Since Iceland was facing bankruptcy and the crown by nearly 70 percent on the euro has fallen, holiday here is cheap as ever - even if prices slow to pick up again. Compared with November 2007, last month 2.6 percent more tourists visited the country.
"The number is expected but still far higher, because even now the lack of foreign workers have become less and businessmen in the tourism figures are included," says Maria Reynisdottir from the tourism office in the capital, Reykjavik. In November it had 40 percent more discussions in the offices where tourism. So far this year were 450,000 tourists - a record.
"Tourism is in crisis very important for our economy, in order to get foreign currency, but also for our image," she says. And the foreigners buy heavily, which the number of tax refunds for tourists occupied. For purchases over 4.0070 Icelandic krona (about 25 euros), there are 15 percent tax back. The leading refund Iceland in November Refund paid 271 percent more taxes than in the previous same month last year.
U.S. tourist: "The nightlife is the madness"
Most taxi drivers in Reykjavik benefit these days, as well as hotel and guesthouse owners of the crisis: "For me it is very good times," says one of the drivers. In the U.S., Iceland as new low-cost travel destination on everyone's lips. Even though the prices for a simple dinner in mid-December already converted at ten euros are included in Reykjavik and environs for this season unusually encountered many Americans, from one crisis to another country rüberjetten.
ON-LINE TO blogs photo line: Beautiful Iceland - Why travel lohntGeysir duel: Iceland v Andernach (03.12.2008) New cheap holiday destination Iceland: locational advantage national bankruptcy (21.10.2008) Penis Museum in Iceland: Who has the biggest? (08.09.2008) Westfjords Islands: Symphony of the water (13.08.2008) stroll in Reykjavik harbor: What eats Iceland? (10.07.2008) One of them is Kim Shaw. After hours, it is with four girlfriends at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and driven 5.5 hours after flight landed in Iceland. "It's a cheap deal" ( "It's a cheap thing"), calls the blonde fashion designer, while the completion of their dreieinhalbtägigen trips in the Blue Lagoon planscht. Shaw has to travel with flight and hotel paid 635 U.S. dollars. "You can not get leave, and if there are such offers, you have access despite crisis."
In the 42 degrees Celsius warm milky-blue Heilsee, the number one tourist attraction, between the black lava stone in the middle of a snow-and ice-scenery is, it is relaxed about the crisis chat. "What we are connecting with the Icelanders, our optimism," says the 26-year-old New Yorker Shaw. "Iceland is just the latest craze," she says. The country in which it blubbert everywhere, and steaming geysers shoot into the air was a bit like Utopia. "And since the arrival we have not slept, the night life is madness."
David Heinziger is the Blue Lagoon not miss, he works in New York's Fifth Avenue in tourism advertising. "Cheap holiday in Iceland in the media is just a big issue, so there is a rush to package deals with hotel and flight." The 320,000 inhabitants of the island was daring operations of the money houses almost come into the abyss.
Price out of gratitude
Through the nationalization of banks and with the help of foreign loans amounting to around ten billion dollars, the state government a bust just yet as to avert. As the billions of credit among others by the International Monetary Fund - was approved, it lowered the airline Icelandair "out of gratitude" prices for flights from Germany a flat rate of 25 percent.
Because of the fast-bankruptcy were also hundreds of press representatives who contributed their part, tourism in the winter unexpected growth rates to mean: Since the television crew from Taiwan, the backgrounds of the crisis reported in the country, where the cola at the kiosk to for the taxi ride everything is paid by credit card.
Or the American magazine journalist who hitchhike around the island, to the Icelanders always the same question: "Are you happy? -" Are you happy? "Finally, Icelanders, according to the European Happy Planet Index" the happiest Europeans . The question now is whether this is the face of an impending economic slump by almost ten percent and sharply rising unemployment is still so.
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