The Blue Lagoon resort within the south of Iceland is a scenic community of steaming azure swimming pools surrounded by darkish rocks, the place vacationers dip within the geothermal water, have spa therapies and luxuriate in what the resort advertises as “a universe of radiant well-being.”
However final week, a stream of radiant lava burst from a crater a number of miles from the resort, forcing it to evacuate a whole lot of company, in one more eruption of a volcano system within the Reykjanes Peninsula that had been dormant for 800 years.
The outbursts started in 2021, and the eruptions and earthquakes within the peninsula have destroyed some homes and compelled villagers from their houses. One building employee went lacking within the city of Grindavik after falling down a crack attributable to an earthquake.
The consequences of the volcanic eruptions have rippled out past the peninsula, disrupting the tourism operations of a rustic that depends closely on guests.
Arnar Már Ólafsson, director common of the Icelandic Vacationer Board, stated that when a looming volcanic eruption led to the evacuation of Grindavik in November, it resulted in international anxiousness that introduced a drop in vacationers.
“A spouting volcano doesn’t sound very inviting,” he stated.
Icelandair, the nation’s nationwide airline, stated it additionally noticed a “vital adverse impression on bookings” within the final months of 2023. And the low-cost Icelandic airline Play stated that information of the eruption “cooled demand for Iceland as a vacation spot.”
The tourism board didn’t launch an estimate for the monetary losses, and the airways, whereas saying they skilled considerably slowed gross sales, didn’t quantify them.
Airline officers and the tourism board director said emphatically in interviews and within the nationwide information media that the response was unwarranted as a result of the eruptions didn’t symbolize a direct risk to guests or flights. They accused the information media of “alarmism.”
“Within the worldwide press, it simply appears as if Iceland is ruined,” Birgir Jónsson, then Play’s chief government, said in an interview printed in December by a monetary journal.
Vacationers used to flock to the Reykjanes Peninsula to look at the northern lights or bathe within the waters of the Blue Lagoon resort. However because the November earthquakes, the Blue Lagoon has had to close for some days. It stated in a press release on Wednesday that it had additionally shut down from March 16 till a minimum of Thursday and would proceed to observe the authorities’ security pointers.
The Northern Gentle Inn, a family-run lodge, has additionally needed to evacuate its company 4 occasions since January and shut for weeks, stated Fridrik Einarsson, the inn’s proprietor. Now, they’re compensating for the drop in vacationers by serving lunches to the development staff constructing safety partitions within the space.
“If this continues for a protracted time period, it can finally be very, very difficult for us,” Mr. Einarsson stated.
Mr. Ólafsson stated that any risk to the Blue Lagoon geothermal resort undermined a key part of Iceland’s tourism sector.
“With out the Blue Lagoon, it will be a unique vacation spot,” he stated, “like Egypt with out the pyramids or Paris with out the Eiffel Tower.”
The resort is especially fashionable with guests from the USA, and yearly, a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals go to the spa, in keeping with the Blue Lagoon’s web site. The spa is now protected by limitations.
The resort owes its existence to the geothermal power generated by the volcanic system, which heats up its waters. However that very same system can also be now its essential risk.
That paradox, many say, is on the coronary heart of Iceland’s id as an journey journey vacation spot the place vacationers hunt down untamed nature within the type of waterfalls, glaciers and sizzling springs. And 130 volcanoes.
In the course of the volcanic eruptions final yr, as vacationers flocked to sites the place they may see the glowing river of lava, the federal government needed to warn individuals to keep away from the realm because the state of affairs may flip harmful.
Now, Icelandic tourism operators say, the anxiousness has eased considerably, and tourism demand has gone up once more since January. However for these remaining within the peninsula, there appears to be no speedy finish in sight to the disruption of their companies.
Final week, as Mr. Einarsson, the inn proprietor, evacuated his company to a different lodge due to the volcanic eruption, he stated they may see lava from the car parking zone.
“It’s fairly an impressive expertise, to see a volcano,” he stated.
Mr. Einarsson known as his relationship to volcanoes a “difficult love and hate state of affairs.”
On one hand, he stated, “individuals are understandably involved to remain in a lodge subsequent to an eruption web site.” On the opposite, he stated, individuals come to Iceland for its nature, and the character wouldn’t be the identical with out the nation’s volcanoes.
“And I’d not be within the enterprise,” he stated.
Egill Bjarnason contributed reporting from Gran Canaria, Spain.