Whilst overall growth slowed from 5% in 2015 to 2% in 2016, the majority of European destinations reported healthy growth in the last months of 2016 and the most visited region in the world still welcomed 620 million international arrivals last year, according to the European Travel Commission's latest report, "European Tourism - Trends & Prospects"
“Iceland remains the top growth destination with an extraordinary performance (+40%) followed by the outstanding performance of Cyprus (+20%) and Slovakia (+19%) owing to improved air connectivity and off-season visits. Bulgaria (+16%) also saw robust growth while other destinations such as Serbia and Portugal (both +13%) are increasingly becoming appealing."
We asked Visit Iceland Director, Inga Hlín Pálsdóttir, for her View on the secret to Iceland's success, and T+L's Nathan Lump about the prospect of more arrivals from the US.