Please note that the headline of this press release was corrected 24 May 2022 at 13:06. Reference to the fact that the headline only referred to foreign overnight stays was missing.
Overnight stays in registered accommodation in 2021 were 5.0 million compared with 3.3 million in 2020. There was an increase in overnight stays between years in all regions, ranging from 33% in the East region, to a twofold increase in the Southwest.
Overnight stays in hotels and guesthouses were 3.2 million in 2021, overnight stays in other indoor accommodation were 833,000 and about 939,000 at camping sites.
Hence, there was a 52.1% increase in overnight stays from 2020. Thereof, there was a 60.4% increase in hotels and guesthouses, 26.6% increase in other indoor accommodation and 52.1% increase at camping sites.
There was a great increase in nearly all regions and types of accommodation, save for camping sites in the Westfjord region where overnight stays went from 61,900 to 64,900 between years (4.7% increase) and in other indoor accommodation in the Capital region, where overnight stays decreased by 24.5% between years, or from 272,200 to 205,400.
Due to Covid-19, a large part of overnight stays in 2020 was due to domestic tourists. There was a year-on-year increase in both domestic and foreign overnight stays in 2021. There were 1.9 million domestic overnight stays, yielding a 32.2% increase from 2020, whereas foreign overnight stays increased to about 3.1 million, or by 68.1%.
Covid-19 related restrictions were introduced in Iceland in the middle of March 2020 and the effects of the pandemic are quite clear when overnight stays are observed month by month. When compared with the same months of 2020, there was a sharp decrease in overnight stays in the first quarter of 2021 (67%-87% decrease), while there was an increase in overnight stays for the remainder of the year. The increase was in the range of 40%-85% during the summer, and even greater in the following months, up to a six-fold increase from 2020.
Statistics Iceland publishes an initial estimate of overnight stays in all types of accommodation on a monthly basis. These figures have now been updated. According to initial estimates, the total number of overnight stays in all types of accommodation was just less than 5,100,000, whereas the final number is now 5,012,000, which is a 1.7% change. Domestic overnight stays decreased by 4.9% from initial estimates, whereas foreign overnight stays increased by 0.4%.
Border survey and Travel survey
Up until the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of overnight stays of foreign travellers in private home accommodation through peer-to-peer websites was estimated from the Border Survey carried out by Statistics Iceland and the Icelandic Tourist Board. In March 2020, a sudden decrease in departures made data gathering for the survey impossible, which led to a temporary discontinuation of the survey. Therefore, the estimated number of overnight stays of foreigners in home accommodation through peer-to-peer websites is not included in the previous numbers of registered overnight stays. The border survey started again in the summer of 2021 and its utilization for the estimation of overnight stays in home accommodation through peer-to-peer platforms (e.g. Airbnb) is planned to start again later this year.
In 2021, Statistics Iceland started collecting data for a travel survey with the intent of gathering information on both domestic and foreign travels of people with residence in Iceland. The first results from this survey are projected to be published later this year.