Norwegians are the biggest credit-card spenders

Foreign visitors to Iceland spent over ISK 2 billion (approx. €13.4 million) on their credit cards to pay for organised tours in January. This is over 9% more than in December. Total credit-card expenditure by foreign visitors to Iceland was ISK 7.2 billion (approx. €48.2 million) in January, a 32.5% increase on January 2014.

This is according to information from the Icelandic Centre for Retail Studies (RSV). The year-on-year increase in total credit-card expenditure includes a 50% increase in car-rental expenditure an increase of over 30% in expenditure on accommodation. The increase is just under 30% for cultural activities, such as museums and events.

Tourists from Norway spent the most on their credit cards, but these figures may be inflated by a good number of Icelanders living in Norway coming back to Iceland for their Christmas holidays and using Norwegian cards. The Swiss follow close behind the Norwegians.

Icelanders spend less on their credit cards

Credit-card expenditure per capita, however, has fallen every year since 2013. Possible explanations for this are changes in how long tourists are staying in Iceland and the effect of more and more payments being made via foreign booking sites.

Credit-card expenditure for Icelanders does not seem to have grown as much as for foreign visitors. Taken into account what Icelanders spend on their credit cards for accommodation, flights and tourist services such as sight-seeing tours the year-on-year increase for January is 5.3%