Tourism in the Faroe Islands
Tourism in the Faroe Islands is a growing industry. The official tourist board is Visit Faroe Islands, which is overseen and organized by the Ministry of Environment, Industry and Trade. Tourism in the islands accounted for 1.4% of the total GDP in 2015. Tourism is much smaller than other industries like fishing, which has dominated the Faroese economy. History Fishing has been the primary sector of the Faroese economy for much of the past decades. Fishing accounts for around 90 to 95 percent of exports. However, the economy has begun to diversify. In 2013, Visit Faroe Islands saw their marketing funds double. In 2014, a new terminal was opened in Vágar Airport, in part due to the tourism increase. Vágar Airport saw the number of passengers increase by 43 percent in the ten years prior to the opening of the new terminal, with expectations of more than 250,000 passengers in 2014. Because of this, the airport hoped that other airline operators would get involved and take advantage of the high amount of traffic between the Faroes and Europe. Visit Faroe Islands started a campaign called "Closed for Maintenance, Open for Voluntourism" which saw a crew of applicants travel to the