Icelandic Prime Minister Talks Bringing Back Tourism

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And, of course, you have announced that you, I think, are going to end the travel ban for those outside the E.U. And you want to get your tourist economy up and running again, because I think you have generally, per year, some two million visitors. I mean, that’s about five times your population. How are you going to be able to do that safely? What are you going to tell the tourists? Are they going to quarantine? How can you — I guess, what are your worries about opening up your borders now?

KATRIN JAKOBSDOTTIR, ICELANDIC PRIME MINISTER: Well, we are going to be very careful. And, right now, people have to go into quarantine if they come to Iceland. It will continue to be so until 15th of June. But what we are planning to do is that we are planning to have the resources to test everybody who comes to Iceland after the 15th of June. So, we are actually planning to use that method of testing, continue to use that method, so people who come to Iceland will be able to choose if they go into quarantine or actually do tests at the airport, or if they have some sort of certification that they have already been tested. Now, this is going to be quite an experimental project. And we’re not expecting two million visitors this year to Iceland, obviously. And, obviously, the economic crisis is going to be deep, because tourism, as you already mentioned, is big in our economy, around 35 percent to 40 percent of our export revenue last year. So, we are going to experience a deep dive. But what we are hoping to do by implementing this testing process on the border is that we will make it easier to travel to and from Iceland. We are a small island, so this is very important for us. And — but we have also made the decision to do this very carefully and evaluate each step, because we know that we can expect to have a relapse with the virus.