Iceland uses Blue Lagoon spa to lure Arctic air travellers

More than one million visitors a year dip into its waters

By JANE GEORGE

Thirsty? You can order a beer while you wander around Iceland's Blue Lagoon. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)


Thirsty? You can order a beer while you wander around Iceland’s Blue Lagoon. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

The steamy waters of the Blue Lagoon spa near Iceland's Keflavik International Airport draw thousands of visitors every day, many on short layovers. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)


The steamy waters of the Blue Lagoon spa near Iceland’s Keflavik International Airport draw thousands of visitors every day, many on short layovers. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

NEAR KEFLAVIK, ICELAND—Some places in the Arctic appear luckier than others: while Iqaluit worries about its municipal water supply, Iceland has managed to transform its plentiful geothermally heated water into a source of power, heating and money.

The best example of this Icelandic miracle is the Blue Lagoon, a spa complex with a Disney World-like appeal, whose chalky, green-blue steaming mineral waters draw visitors from around the world.

While many believe the Blue Lagoon taps into a natural spring, the lagoon is actually fed from waters left over from a nearby geothermal power plant. This plant pumps geothermally heated hot water up from deep below the surface to spin turbines for electricity, and then passes this water again through heat exchangers to provide municipal heat.

Not that visitors to the Blue Lagoon necessarily think about this while they float around the 37-to-39-C mineral-rich waters or rub silica into their faces as a mask. In fact, it’s hard to think about anything.

Thanks to canny promotion, the artificial lagoon has become a draw for more than one million visitors a year—that is, about three times more than the entire population of Iceland, who are largely bused in from the nearby international airport. That’s despite the fact that the Blue Lagoon is located in a far-from-scenic rocky lava field.

It wasn’t always this way in Iceland, an Arctic island in the North Atlantic.

Until 1987, the Keflavik airport, built by the United States military in the 1940s, looked much like the airports in Frobisher Bay (now Iqaluit), Great Whale River (Kuujjuaraapik), Resolute Bay or Happy Valley-Goose Bay. It was nothing extraordinary, although it boasted a long runway.

Keflavik’s old air terminal consisted of one large room. There, passengers in the 1970s would stop in when commercial flights used to refuel after Icelandair started offering cheap flights to North America.

Since those early years, with air traffic now booming, Keflavik’s air terminal has been expanded three times, and offers numerous check-in desks, baggage claim belts, gates and many restaurants and stores.

And its growth has gone hand-in-hand with the Blue Lagoon, where people started bathing in 1981. They even attributed healthful powers to the power plant’s pooled waste water.

Today, the Blue Lagoon is worth about US$290 million and brings in busloads of people every hour. A Canadian traveller on a recent 16-hour layover in Iceland discovered just how popular the place is when she came to the spa without a reservation and was told she couldn’t get in because the lagoon was at capacity.

The Blue Lagoon’s winning formula is simple and streamlined: visitors who have prepaid about $200 for airport transfer and access to the waters are processed and then head to the changing rooms and into the lagoon.

There, they float around for a while. These days, almost everyone still hangs onto their cell phones to film the experience. There’s also a cafe where you can order something to drink, and when you leave you can buy everything from skin creams to bathing suits as souvenirs.

To improve their complexion, visitors to the Blue Lagoon coat their faces with silica during their visit to this big tourist attraction. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)


To improve their complexion, visitors to the Blue Lagoon coat their faces with silica during their visit to this big tourist attraction. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

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