A Swedish tourist has been found dead on the Sólheimajökull glacier, the police were able to confirm, after a multi-day search for him drew to a conclusion this afternoon. The confirmation was released in a statement ICE-SAR, the Icelandic search and rescue service.

Daniel Markus Hoij lay dead when the search and rescue team discovered him on the glacier at 11:55 today, at an altitude of 600m. More than 300 search and rescue workers were taking part in the search at any one time, 80 of which were on the glacier itself. Over the past few days, the search has been particularly intensive and over 500 people from ICE-SAR have participated since it began on Wednesday evening.

Hoij had contacted the search and rescue team on his mobile phone whilst on the glacier, which ran out of battery during in the phone call. The conversation lasted for 3 minutes 58 seconds, and emergency services were unable to get through to the phone again. Hoij was said to be particularly shaken during the call, and was unable to give any exact information on his location.

Residents and companies in the area have been supporting the search and rescue team. The women’s institutes Fjallkonan, Eygló and Freyja opened a rest and food centre for the workers in a schoolhouse in Skógar which was open around the clock.

The institutes opened the centre as a way of showing gratitude for the help ICE-SAR has provided during recent volcanic eruptions. Hotels and guesthouses have also opened their doors for the workers, companies have donated food and the Red Cross in Hvolsvöllur oversaw logistics in the search area.

ICE-SAR would like to register their gratitude to all of those who came to help in the operation. The Hvolsvöllur police force would also like to register its gratitude to the ICE-SAR team, Icelandic Coastguard workers and all those who have worked around the clock over the past few days. Conditions during the search were particularly bad and required specialist knowledge of those who participated.

Source and image: mbl.is (1), mbl.is (2)

Labels: Accidents, Tourism

Icelandic airline WOW Air is due to start operations in May next year, but those plans will not go smoothly if EasyJet has anything to do with it. The British bright-orange low-budget airline has just announced that it intends to start flights between London Luton airport and Keflavík airport in March 2012, pipping WOW Air to the post by two months.

This is a landmark in Icelandic aviation history and the first time a serious low-budget contender has entered the market. Iceland Express, Iceland’s domestic “budget” airline, often has its fares at a similar if not higher price than Icelandair, the nation’s flag carrier. Iceland Express has come under much criticism in the Icelandic press lately due to its reputation for delays and cancellations.

EasyJet plans to change the game on a grand scale: its lowest single-way airfare will be £32.99 (€39, $52) and returns will start from £58.81 (€69, $93). This is by far the cheapest airfare available between these two destinations with any airline. When WOW Air commences operations in May, there will be four airlines in total operating commercial services between Iceland and the rest of Europe.

The effective doubling of available options should be good news for competition in the Icelandic airline industry, which has been fairly stagnant for a number of years whilst passenger numbers have been soaring. This year Icelandair reported record numbers of passengers, seeing 60,000 more in the first ten months of 2011 compare to last year.

The favourable exchange rate of the Icelandic króna and improving tourist infrastructure are amongst the reasons for the explosion in tourism in Iceland, as well as heavy marketing campaigns from Icelandair and Inspired by Iceland.

The launch marks the first time EasyJet has offered flights to Iceland. Potential passengers will be able to book flights through the company’s website starting tomorrow, the first flight being on 27th February 2012. EasyJet has yet to launch a local version of its website for Icelandic customers.

Source: EasyJet
Image: EasyJet PR

Labels: Tourism, Transport

A whale peppersteak

Icelandic whale meat which was on sale at the international airport in Keflavík has been withdrawn from sale following a UK government warning that those caught importing the meat to the country could face a fine or imprisonment. The decision was apparently taken within hours of the meat going on sale at the airport, according to The Guardian.

40% of minke whale meat consumed in Iceland is served to foreign tourists. As previously reported, whalers have been offering tours to see a day in the life of a whaler, which have been highly controversial with whale-watching companies.

Source: Morgunblaðið
Image: Flickr

Labels: Food, Tourism, Whaling

WOW’s uniform

The newest Icelandic airline WOW Air has yet to start operations, yet it is already kicking up a fuss. According to Viðskiptablaðið, there has been a lot of interest in positions with the company and over 600 people have applied for jobs there. The airline started advertising last weekend, amongst others for four management positions and an unspecified number of summer jobs for air staff. The majority of the applications have been for the latter. More permanent positions with the company are expected to be advertised shortly.

Labels: Tourism, Transport

The Landsbjörg Rescue Team was called out this evening to search for two men in the Fimmvörðuháls area, which is located between the glaciers Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull in south Iceland.

Fimmvörðuháls was the site of volcanic activity before the larger eruption under Eyjafjallajökull earlier this year. The men intended to visit the eruption site themselves, but got lost in the thick fog which has been covering much of the country today.

One of the men is Icelandic and the other Danish, and both are experienced mountaineers according to information from Morgunblaðið. The men are in constant contact with the search and rescue team, who are now trying to locate them. The team is currently on its way up both of the larger mountains in the area.

The team received a message from the men just before midnight on Sunday that they saw the blue flashing lights of the rescue team somewhere near Þórsmörk. The image depicts a search and rescue team on Fimmvörðuháls.

Source and image: mbl.is

Labels: Eyjafjallajökull, Tourism

Publicity events for the all-new and all-shiny advertising campaign Inspired by Iceland will be held in key tourist markets across Europe this week, marking the start of a new promotion aimed at boosting tourism in the country. Events will be held for journalists and travel fans in Milan, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Oslo. In addition, it is expected that preparations for media events in the USA will shortly be getting underway. The campaign was announced today on the website of the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs (PR in Icelandic).

At the meetings, foreign ambassadors of Iceland for the respective countries — Þórir Ibsen, Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson, Stefán Haukur Jóhannesson, Sturla Sigurjónsson, Guðmundur Árni Stefánsson and Sigríður Dúna Kristmundsdóttir — will be in attendance. Geologists Ari Trausti Guðmundsson and Rikke Pedersen will also fly the flag for Iceland, alongside Icelandic tourism representatives Davíð Jóhannson and Einar Bollason. They will speak about the eruption under Eyjafjallajökull and play up Iceland as a summer destination for tourists.

There will be a particular emphasis on encouraging foreign journalists to hop over to Iceland and write about the country as a tourist destination, as well as encouraging visits from foreign tour operators to familiarise themselves with the state of affairs in the country.

The campaign follows a particularly negative year for Iceland PR wise, with the bank collapse and more recently the volcanic eruption putting tourists off visiting the country. Since the economic crisis, advertisements by Icelandair have appeared in the UK and USA encouraging tourists to take advantage of the best exchange rate in years.

The tourism campaign was launched on Friday and will run throughout May and July. The campaign is truly multi-faceted and 21st century, with adverts being displayed (video in Icelandic) throughout the Tube network in London, UK newspapers, online (see right), and on social networking sites. Following the eruption and chaos surrounding flights in Europe, many tourists planning to visit Iceland in the summer cancelled or postponed their travel plans. It seems that the Inspired by Iceland campaign is aiming to counter some of the bad PR.

I myself will be flying to Iceland next week, and I am fully behind the campaign. Iceland needs tourists now more than ever, and it is the perfect time to come and see everything the country has to offer. Even the singed ram testicles.

Source: mbl.is
Image: Inspired by Iceland

Labels: Tourism