Never more overnight stays than this July

The total number of overnight stays in Icelandic hotels and other accommodation for tourists have never been more than last July, or 1,550,600. This means that every night there were 50 thousand guests staying overnight in Iceland in the month of July.

82% foreign tourists

Looking into how that number is divided between locals and tourists, 82% of the stays were foreign tourists, or 1,27 million overnight stays. This is more than a doubling from last year's July, when the overnight stays were 588 thousand. Icelanders travelling and staying overnight were 279 thousand which is approximately half the number from last year's July.

The last time these numbers peak was in July 2017, but then the number was 1,402 thousand. Before that was July 2016 with the number 1,380 thousand.

Article on Iceland Monitor

30% of tourists in Iceland in June are from the United States

Overnight stays in hotels in July were 599,200 and in all areas in Iceland that number went up compared to July 2021. Most rise in number was in the capital region, or 89%. Overnight stays of foreign tourists almost doubled between 2021 and 2022 and were 495,900, but for local tourists that number was 103,300 which is a 15% decrease from last year.

Almost reaching the numbers  before Covid

In a twelve month period from August 2021 until July 2022 the overall overnight stays in hotels were 4,091,400 which is more than triple the number from last year. An increase in numbers was over all the country, but to compare the numbers were 2,143 thousand last year. If we look at the years before the Covid pandemic the numbers in 2019 were 4,751 thousand for the first seven months of that year. In 2018 there were 4,857 thousand  and 2017 it was 4,892 thousand. That means that this year there are only 70 thousand overnight stays missing to reach the highest numbers before Covid.