Tourism as a proportion of GDP amounted to 8.1% in 2016. Tourism share of GDP was 6.2% in 2015 and 5.2% in 2014. Preliminary figures for 2017 will be published on 20 July 2018. These statistics are part of the publication of Tourism Satellite Accounts which has been produced by Statistics Iceland in order to calculate the contribution of tourism to the Icelandic economy, based on international standards in tourism statistics.
In total there were 2,146,273 inbound tourism trips to Iceland in 2016, an increase of 35.2% from the previous year. The greatest increase was in the number of overnight visits or 39%. Excursions or same day visits, typically by cruise line passengers, increased by 18.9% from 2015. The increase in the number of overnight stays was 21.6% which is a considerably less increase than in the number of visits.
In October 2017 Statistics Iceland published preliminary results for the contribution of tourism to GDP in 2016. The preliminary results indicated that the contribution of tourism to GDP was 8.4% compared with the revised figure of 8.1%. The difference between preliminary and revised figures is primarily due to revised methods and data for certain categories that resulted in reduced figures, both for the year 2016 and for previous years. The previously published value for 2015 was lowered from 6.7% to 6.2% and from 5.6% down to 5.2% for the year 2014. The reduction is less substantial for the years prior to 2014.
Tourism proportion of GDP compared with other industries in 2016
When comparing tourism to other industries’ share of GDP, one must bear in mind that tourism is not classified as a separate activity in standard industrial classifications. Tourism as an industry is therefore assembled from a proportion of activities of multiple other industries.
