Why did Iceland grow so much in the past 8 years?
Iceland became a very popular location after the economic crisis in 2008, but it became very attractive to be visited after the eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in the spring of 2010. Newborn nature, landscapes from the outer space and aparently a good economical example.
Long-term strategy for the Icelandic tourism industry, Februarie 2013, Accountants and Business Advisors
The Financial crisis
Around 2008 and 2009 all the newspapers in the world were pointing Iceland for the good example that they gave to all the other countries because of the measures that they took with their politicians and strategies. Of course, the news make it big and very nice and bright example, but it is not always like this. People became curious about the small country close to the end of the Earth and than they discovered an untouched beautiful nature that just started to be born recently.
The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010
On 14th of April in 2010, a second eruption of the volcano was about to happen. The first one took place on 20th of March the same year and it was not so well know as it did not affect so much the international traffic. After the second eruption, the aerial traffic was blocked over Europe especially. The effect of the eruption was not so bad for Iceland I could say: nobody died, the evacuation worked properly and they could get back to the habits sooner than you would think. It might have been big on news and of course, very difficult for the people that really needed to fly during that period, but Iceland got its best of it!
One of the biggest advertisments in and about Iceland is the volcano with the long name that a lot of journalists were trying to say it right. Working in tourism, I think looking for information regarding Eyjafjallajökull it is one of the most common topics for tourist and somehow it is absolutely normal to be this way.
The football games
In 2016, it was a very big surprise to see Iceland at the UEFA European Championship. They were doing actually very, very well and of course, few of the games were a good subject for jokes, like after the one with England. Also, in 2018, after they qualified to the World Cup the interest about Iceland started to increase as well.