Svartigaldur · Economy · 8 October 2026
One Norwegian county. Slightly more growth than an entire country.
Added foreign winter guest nights
2016/17–2025/26 · October–March
Iceland had a record winter in 2025/26: foreign guests spent more nights here than ever before, according to preliminary figures. Within that record is a less comfortable comparison. Since 2016/17, Troms, the Norwegian county that includes Tromsø, has added more foreign winter guest nights than all of Iceland. The finding reveals the rise of a much smaller competitor. It does not, by itself, reveal where Iceland’s visitors went.
Produced with AI assistance. Sources and calculations accompany the article.
Growth and scale
The whole bar shows last winter’s total. The darker section shows the nights added since 2016/17.
Foreign winter guest nights in Troms rose from 212,000 to 666,000. Iceland recorded 2.97 million last winter. It remains a much larger winter destination. Yet one Norwegian county added slightly more nights — in absolute numbers, not just as a percentage. Finnish Lapland added even more: 741,000 nights.
The starting point matters. We begin in winter 2016/17, after Iceland’s first big expansion. Between 2012/13 and 2016/17, foreign winter guest nights in Iceland had already more than tripled. This comparison measures what happened after that boom. It does not show that Troms has always grown more.
Nor does the ranking depend on last winter’s preliminary figures. By 2024/25, the last winter with final data, Troms had added 383,000 foreign guest nights against Iceland’s 364,000.
The two offices do not classify foreign guests identically: Iceland uses citizenship, Norway uses country of residence. These are the published accommodation counts, with that limit on comparability. They neither track the same travellers nor identify how many came specifically to see the northern lights.
1 · Search
| Winter | Iceland | Norway and Tromsø | Finland and Lapland |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012/13 | 51% | 32% | 17% |
| 2013/14 | 54% | 31% | 15% |
| 2014/15 | 60% | 27% | 13% |
| 2015/16 | 63% | 23% | 14% |
| 2016/17 | 66% | 21% | 13% |
| 2017/18 | 61% | 25% | 14% |
| 2018/19 | 60% | 28% | 12% |
| 2019/20 | 53% | 30% | 17% |
| 2020/21 | 48% | 29% | 23% |
| 2021/22 | 56% | 28% | 16% |
| 2022/23 | 54% | 32% | 14% |
| 2023/24 | 46% | 37% | 16% |
| 2024/25 | 43% | 41% | 17% |
| 2025/26 | 37% | 43% | 20% |
Source: Google Trends, web search, retrieved 8 October 2026; Svartigaldur's calculations.
In British searches connecting the northern lights with Iceland, Norway and Finland, Iceland’s share was 66% in winter 2016/17. Last winter it was 37%. We downloaded the country phrases alongside Tromso and Lapland in a single comparison, on the same scale. “Northern lights iceland” remained the most popular individual phrase. A smaller share does not mean interest in Iceland disappeared.
Worldwide, Iceland’s share fell from 62% to about 36% over the same period. In the United States it fell from 70% to 48%. Search data support the picture of stronger competition. But they measure interest, not bookings, and worldwide searches include people who have already arrived at their destination.
Worldwide interest in the northern lights themselves was higher last winter than at any point in these data, which begin in 2012. Searches for Iceland also increased; searches for Norway and Finland increased much more. This was an expanding pool of attention. Some searches came from people hoping to see the lights at home, without booking a trip at all.
A traveller can search for Tromsø without mentioning Norway. We downloaded searches for Norway and Tromsø together again, removing overlap. Combined, they were level with Iceland in British winter searches last winter, at a ratio of 1.03 to 1. That is evidence of competition for attention. It cannot show that Norway received the same visitors Iceland lost.
2 · The British
| Winter | British passengers |
|---|---|
| 2010/11 | 32 |
| 2011/12 | 44 |
| 2012/13 | 68 |
| 2013/14 | 103 |
| 2014/15 | 132 |
| 2015/16 | 185 |
| 2016/17 | 226 |
| 2017/18 | 217 |
| 2018/19 | 201 |
| 2019/20 | 172 |
| 2020/21 | 1 |
| 2021/22 | 106 |
| 2022/23 | 194 |
| 2023/24 | 213 |
| 2024/25 | 159 |
| 2025/26 | 144 |
Sources: Icelandic Tourist Board and Statistics Iceland (SAM02001, SAM01601, SAM01102), Statistics Norway (14162), Statistics Finland (11iz), Bank for International Settlements (BIS), FF7.
British travellers were the largest foreign winter nationality at Keflavík Airport from 2002/03 to 2017/18. In winter 2016/17, 226,000 departed through the airport. After the pandemic the total recovered to 213,000 in 2023/24. Britain is therefore an important test of the idea that new competitors are drawing visitors away from Iceland.
Last winter, 144,000 British travellers departed through Keflavík, 32% fewer than two winters earlier. The decline is still 31% if March is excluded to reduce the effect of Easter moving between months. British hotel nights fell less, by 18%. Passenger counts and nights stayed do not tell quite the same story.
Between 2016/17 and 2024/25, British winter guest nights in Iceland fell by 181,000. They rose by 45,000 in northern Norway and by 58,000 in Lapland. These totals do not trace individual travellers, and the countries classify foreign guests differently. They cannot establish that the British visitors who stopped coming to Iceland simply went to Norway. Air routes, prices and other destinations remain possible parts of the explanation.
What the record conceals
Iceland’s winter tourism business is still much larger than Troms’s. But since the expansion that culminated in 2016/17, the small county has added slightly more foreign winter guest nights. Searches point in the same direction: Iceland remains on travellers’ lists while competitors claim more of their attention. The challenge for Iceland’s tourism businesses is to turn that large existing winter market into renewed growth. A record total alone cannot tell them whether they are succeeding.
Final figures for last winter and the next winter season will show whether Troms keeps its lead in additional nights. The comparison needs the same months and accommodation coverage throughout.
Searches can signal changing interest. Guest nights show whether that interest becomes business. Evidence about individual travellers’ choices would be needed to establish who chose Norway instead of Iceland.
Winter always means October–March here. The 2016/17 starting point examines the period after Iceland’s earlier boom. Google Trends is a relative, sampled measure, not a count of trips. Destination shares average two downloads on the same day; they never differed by a full percentage point. Other search ratios use one download. Iceland classifies foreign guests by citizenship; Norway and Finland use country of residence. Icelandic and Finnish figures for January–March 2026 are preliminary, and Iceland estimates non-hotel nights. Iceland’s changed nationality classification in 2025 limits comparisons of individual citizenships. Airport nationality figures have been sample-based since October 2019 and include foreign residents and some connecting passengers. Guest-night totals do not identify the purpose of a trip: they cannot all be counted as northern-lights holidays. Underlying data retrieved 8 October 2026.
This analysis was produced with the help of AI. The data and text were reviewed.