The findings shed light on traveler behavior and its impact on Iceland’s tourism industry, which continues to welcome millions of international visitors each year.
The survey highlights clear differences in how travelers are perceived on the ground, particularly when it comes to communication, preparation for local conditions, service-related challenges, and compliance with safety and environmental guidelines.
“This data reflects what people working in Icelandic tourism encounter every day,” said Ingolfur Shahin, CEO of Guide to Iceland. “It’s not about judging travelers, but about recognizing real patterns that affect safety, service quality, and the overall travel experience.”
How the Survey Was Conducted
The survey was conducted by Gallup between December 2025 and January 2026. It was distributed to tourism professionals working across the tourism sector in Iceland, including the operators of accommodations, tours, and car rentals. All respondents interact regularly with international travelers as part of their daily work.
For each survey question, respondents selected up to three nationalities they most often associate with specific aspects of the travel experience, including communication, service-related challenges, preparedness, and compliance with safety and environmental guidelines.
These selections were made from a predefined list of the ten largest travel nationalities visiting Iceland (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, France, Italy, and China), with an additional “other countries” option.
Clear Patterns in How Professionals Experience Tourists in Iceland
Source: Guide to Iceland × Gallup (2026). Link to full report.
Across all six questions, tourism professionals tended to associate the same nationalities with similar types of interactions. Some groups are more often linked with smooth communication, strong preparation, and higher compliance with safety and environmental guidelines, while others appear more frequently in situations requiring additional guidance or support.
Travelers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are most often associated with easy communication, while Germany stands out for preparation and compliance with safety and environmental guidance.
The United States also appears across several categories, both positive and challenging, reflecting the diversity of the visitor group. China appears most frequently in categories related to communication difficulty, service challenges, and disregard of guidelines, highlighting where additional information and support are most often needed.
Supporting Better Travel Experiences
While the survey groups responses by nationality, the findings point less to nationality itself and more to practical factors that shape travel experiences in Iceland. Industry experience suggests that communication in a shared language, travel habits, and familiarity with Iceland’s conditions play a central role in how smoothly interactions unfold between travelers and tourism professionals.
Guide to Iceland says the goal of the survey is not only to understand current challenges, but to actively improve how travelers and tourism professionals experience Icelandic tourism.
“The findings give us a clear direction for where improvements can have the greatest impact,” said Ingolfur Shahin. “We will use these insights to strengthen information before and during travel, set clearer expectations around Iceland’s conditions, and expand the use of multilingual guidance and signage, including in languages such as Chinese, so that important safety and environmental information is easier to understand in real-world situations. Better-prepared travelers have safer, smoother trips, which benefits both visitors and tourism professionals.”
Full survey results, including detailed rankings, analysis, and methodology, are available in Guide to Iceland’s full breakdown of the survey findings.
