Iceland review - 2014, Síða 81

ICELAND REVIEW 79
CONVENTIONs
“Strategically located midway between Europe and America, we
enable people from the world over to meet in the middle.”
nation management and transportation companies. “In addition
to that, our principal task is really to change the world’s percep-
tion of us as an exotic and raw adventure destination when we
are in fact a modern metropolis with solid infrastructure.”
Before leading the Meet in Reykjavík team, Thorsteinn, who
holds a M.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering, worked as senior man-
ager within the tourism and airline industry. He also has extensive
experience in management consulting. “To promote Reykjavík,
we apply a variety of marketing tools; we for example attend
conventions and hold presentations at embassies. And we rec-
ognize that the internet is our most important well of information
and therefore make sure that our website is state-of-the-art. This
is a long term project but already we are getting great results.
People are generally very happy when they leave; the success
stories are endless. I used to say that only the sky was the limit
but have changed that into, don’t tell me that when there are
footsteps on the moon.”
Meet in Reykjavík is a joint effort between the private and
the public sector with partners including Municipality of Reykja-
vík, Icelandair Group, Harpa and many others. “Our success is a
great testimony to the way in which these two sectors can work
together in everyone’s best interest. Competition can get you
ahead but cooperation can get you exponentially further,” ex-
plains Thorsteinn. “The MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences
and Events) market in Europe is the most developed by far, with
an annual turnover of around 30,000 billion Icelandic króna. Only
a fraction of that would fortify the economy,” he continues. “And
when exploring the country, they do so in supervised tours. Sim-
ply put, every day we are strengthening the economy and creat-
ing value, but in harmony with our resource, nature.”