www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs and politics, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
Facebook: Hovedstederblogg
Det islandske selskapet Wow Air fortsetter ekspansjonen i USA og lanserer en ny direkterute fra Reykjavik denne gang til Pittsburgh i Pennsylvania, skriver Travelnews.
Ruten starter opp 16.juni 2017, og de billigste billettene vil ifølge Wow Air komme på under tusenlappen.
Selskapet flyr allerede til nordamerikanske destinasjoner som Montreal og Toronto i Canada, Washington DC, Miami, Boston, New York, San Francisco og Los Angeles.
Flyvningene mellom Reykjavik og Pittsburgh blir trafikkert med Wow Airs Airbus A321.
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs and politics, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
I dag, 17.juni, er det Islands nasjonaldag. Det var på denne datoen i 1944 at republikken Island ble proklamert i Reykjavik, etter å ha vært et monarki i personalunion med Danmark fra 1918.
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs and politics, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
Authorities in Iceland have moved to curb the number of residents offering properties up for holiday rent on Airbnb in a bid to counterbalance the country’s overwhelming visitor numbers, The Telegraph online newspaper in London reported.
The legislation, which could come into effect this week, would impose a business tax on people letting out their homes for more than 90 days a year, according to the newspaper.
“Policymakers are in the final stages of discussing new rules on home sharing across the country. The proposed rules support home sharing on Airbnb generally but include provisions that could require some occasional home sharers to register as businesses,” Airbnb said in a statement.
The move follows a ruling in April that required those living in an apartment block to secure approval from other residents in the building before offering a property on the holiday lets website.
Iceland has seen a huge surge in tourism in the last five years. In 2015 Iceland welcomed 1.2 million tourists and is expecting 1.6 million in 2016, with growing interest from travellers – from Northern Lights seekers to fans of the new Star Wars film or the Game of Thrones TV-series, both filmed in Iceland.
But the authorities fear Iceland will be unable to accommodate more and more tourists, projected to be nearly 30,000 a day this year, and want to protect both the unspoilt landscapes as well as the housing market.
“This strong growth is expected to continue in 2016. But with it come a number of challenges: to preserve the natural surroundings that are such an important part of Iceland’s appeal and to build up the infrastructure needed to maintain Iceland’s worldwide competitiveness as a travel destination,” said Kristín Hrönn Guðmundsdóttir, the executive director at Íslandsbanki Research.
While the number of available hotel rooms in the country grew more than ever last year, with 290 new rooms created, it is still not enough to meet the estimated requirement of 1,400, according to the latest report on tourism by the Icelandic bank.
Airbnb has seen a 124 per cent increase in usage in the last 12 months, with nearly 4,000 listings created in January this year, compared to 1,700 last year, according to figures from the local travel website Túristi.
In the capital Reykjavik, where most tourists stay, there was a 126 per cent increase in total Airbnb listings in November last year, with more than 100 apartments available on its main street alone, compared to December 2014, while the country as a whole saw a 156 per cent increase in Airbnb stays last year compared to 2014, welcoming 211,000 guests, the company reported.
Residents are said to have suffered from the rising demand for holiday rental accommodation which has been coupled with a dramatic increase in housing prices in central parts of the capital, and a shortage in long-term rental options.
“We don’t want downtown Reykjavík to be tourists only, with no locals,” Áshildur Bragadóttir, the director of Visit Reykjavík, told The Guardian.
See the full story in The Telegraph here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/iceland-to-restrict-airbnb-rentals-to-cope-with-tourism-surge/
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs and politics, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
I går torsdag 19. mai åpnet Icelandair ny rute fra Keflavik til Montréal i Canada, med fire ukentlige avganger, skriver Travelnews.no
Ruten vil være i drift frem til 8. november. Montreal, som ligger i provinsen Quebec, blir den femte kanadiske destinasjonen for det islandske flyselskapet.
Turen fra Reykjavik til Pierre Trudeau International Airport tar vel fem timer, mens hele reisen fra Skandinavia, inkludert et flybytte på Keflavik, tar rundt ti timer, skriver nettstedet.
Flyplassen i Montreal er den travleste i Quebec, og den fjerde travleste i Canada målt i passasjertrafikk. Flyplassen er oppkalt etter Canadas legendariske og mangeårige statsminister Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000), statsminister 1968-1979 og 1980-1984. Han var født i Montreal, og er far til dagens statsminister, Justin Trudeau (44), regjeringssjef siden november 2015.
Montreal er landets nest største by, etter Toronto, og har 1,7 millioner innbyggere.
I forbindelse med Icelandairs transatlantiske ruter kan man stoppe på Island i opptil syv døgn på ut- eller hjemreisen, uten tillegg i flybilletten.
Icelandair fly nå til 16 destinasjoner i Nord-America:
USA: Boston i Massachusets, Washington DC, New York City (JFK og Newark), Orlando i Florida, Minneapolis / St.Paul i Minnesota, Denver i Colorado, Seattle i Washington, Anchorage i Alaska, Portland i Oregon, og Chicgao i Illinois.
Canada: Toronto i Ontario, Halifax på Nova Scotia, Vancouver, i British Columbia, Edmonton i Alberta, og Montreal i Quebec.
Les hele saken på Travelnews her: http://travelnews.no/nyheter/fly/icelandair-til-montreal/
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs and politics, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
Low-cost Hungarian airline Wizz Air has announced the addition of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to its Iceland network – with more destinations possibly in the pipeline, the icelandmonitor.mbl.is website reports.
According to Icelandic tourism and travel news website turisti.is (link in Icelandic), Wizz Air will begin their service to Vilnius in October 2016 and will operate the route all year round.
Wizz Air already links Iceland and it’s capital Reykjavik to Gdansk and Warszaw in Poland, and Budapest, capital of Hungary.
Gabor Vasarhelyi, Communications Manager at Wizz Air, told turisti.is that the airline is not ruling out the possibility of further direct links to Iceland, with cities in Romania, Serbia and Ukraine the most likely candidates.
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs and politics, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center, Reykjavik. Photo credit: iceland.is
Maybe the US state of Rhode Island should be called Rhode Iceland?
Rhode Island officials yanked a new tourism video, designed to draw visitors to the state, off YouTube in embarrassment on Tuesday after eagle-eyed viewers complained it showed a scene shot in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, according to the Associated Press news agency / Ottawa Sun.
The state’s economic development agency, the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, confirmed the goof and blamed an editing company.
The state released the video at a meeting on Monday night and posted it online Tuesday for a new campaign. The video’s intro features a skateboarder outside a glass building and has a narrator saying, “Imagine a place that feels like home but holds enough uniqueness that you’re never bored.
“People on social media said: Hey, that’s not Rhode Island — that’s the Harpa concert hall and conference centre in Reykjavik”.
Designer Greg Nemes visited Iceland in October and said he recognized the photogenic building, which has a steel framework and an exterior skin of differently colored glass panels.
“It was pretty unmistakable to me, so I did some digging around and posted on Facebook about it,” he said.
Social media users agreed with him, posting side-by-side photos of the building in the Rhode Island ad and Harpa.
Early Tuesday, the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation’s art director said he could “assure that all shots” were in Rhode Island.
But later Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the agency confirmed that the building in the state’s tourism ad is Harpa and said an editing company used the wrong footage.
Read more and see video here: http://www.ottawasun.com/2016/03/30/rhode-island-tourism-video-features-reykjavik-iceland
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
High security walls and an even taller flagpole are amongst the design details put forward for the new US embassy in Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, reports The Iceland Grapevine website.
Vísir reports that the new embassy, which is to be built at Engjateigur 7, will include such features as security walls from 3 metres to 4.5 metres tall, and a flagpole that reaches even higher than that – 18 metres.
The embassy signed an agreement with the construction company Ístak in 2014 to build the new embassy, and changes are still needed for both the plot and the building which is already there before the embassy can move operations from their current location on Laufásvegur.
No final date for completion of the project has been announced.
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
Reykjavik Bridge Festival går av stabelen i perioden 27. til 31.januar. Den populære festivalen ble første gang arrangert i 1982, og ble da kalt Icelandair Open.
I 1982 stilte 36 par og seks lag til start, mens det i år – foreløpig – er påmeldt 139 par og 86 lag, skriver Dagbladet.
Mange norske spillere plotter inn en langhelg i Islands hovedstad på kalenderen når festivalen, som er kjent for sin sosiale profil, blir arrangert, og nordmenn bruker å gjøre seg bemerket på resultatlistene.
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
“The Rezidor Hotel Group is the only international hotel group with a significant portfolio in the Nordic region. It is also one of Europe’s leading airport hotel operators. We have presence at almost all major gateways and travel hubs across the continent. With a new Park Inn by Radisson in Iceland, we are signaling our commitment to maintaining our leading position in the Nordics and offering a great hospitality experience for all segments, across all markets”, said Tom Flanagan, Area Vice President Nordics of The Rezidor Hotel Group.
Situated in the city center and only 5 kilometers from Keflavik International Airport, Park Inn by Radisson offers 77 colorful rooms and suites with innovations like Free & Fast High-speed Internet. The hotel also offers 470 sqm of meeting & event space equipped with top modern conference technology.
The hotel is a relaxing haven for business and leisure travelers who can enjoy the hotel’s all-day-dining restaurant, a lobby bar and variety of wellness services, from yoga to beauty treatments and a gym that will be renovated soon.
Iceland’s famous Blue Lagoon and the capital city Reykjavik are 20 and 35 minutes away from the hotel. With its unique landscape of mountains, hot springs and glaciers, Iceland is one of the most fascinating countries and islands of the world. The number of international visitors increased by 20% per annum over the past two years to 1.1 million.
“We are looking forward to welcoming global travelers to our latest addition close to Keflavik International Airport. Park Inn by Radisson is set to offer its signature mid-market hospitality experience topped by an unparalleled Yes I Can! service. We are proud to partner with The Rezidor Hotel Group, Nordic’s undisputed hospitality leader, on this project,” commented Bjarni Pálsson, owner of the hotel.
www.hovedsteder.blogg.no is a Norway-based blog about the capitals of the world, with a focus on tourism and travel, the environment, diplomatic affairs, lifestyle, culture and entertainment, food and drink. See also our travel blog at www.minbestereise.blogg.no – Contact us at [email protected]
På grunn av et voldsomt uvær, er myndighetene på Island i høy beredskap og oppfordrer befolkningen til å holde seg innendørs, melder nrk.no
Været er det verste på 25 år, skriver nettavisen Iceland Monitor.
