Icelandair has recently launched a hard to refuse offer for passengers flying transatlantic: Stopover in Iceland. Anyone crossing over the Atlantic with Icelandair can add a stopover of 1 to 7 days in Iceland at no extra cost.
The offer has proven so successful, the airline says, that it has created a problem with tourists arriving to Iceland on their stopovers and getting enchanted by the country’s beauty that they refuse to leave. To deal with the wonderers who refuse to return home, Icelandair hired Hugi, whose job is to track down lost passengers and, with the help of his Icelandic sheepdog, Freyja, guide them back to the airport.
We decided to hire the world’s first-ever Tourist Bouncer to help guide them back to the airport when their stopover is, well, over.
Icelandair
“Since we launched Icelandair Stopovers, we’ve encountered a problem – tourists don’t want to leave Iceland (and we understand why). So we decided to hire the world’s first-ever Tourist Bouncer to help guide them back to the airport when their stopover is, well, over. Say hello to the latest addition to the team, Hugi, Icelandair’s Tourist Bouncer”, the airline wrote on Instagram.
Ever since getting hired in October, Hugi has taken over Icelandair’s Instagram account, posting frequent updates on what his job entails and why it is so important. ” I mean, someone has to help the stopover tourists leave”, he says.
Now, I’ve got a nickname for our Icelandair Stopover tourists – I call them ‘boomerangs’. Why, you ask? Well, just like a loyal boomerang, they always come back to us!
Hugi, Tourist Bouncer at Icelandair
“And for the people wondering, Mrs. Schneider made it to the airport on time. So did the plant”, Hugi assured after tracking down a woman in a hotel, one of the good places to find stopover tourists at, as he points out. “A good place to find a tourist is next to a waterfall”, he explains on a different day, when he finds “yet another tourist who admired a waterfall for a bit too long”.
The airline describes the stopover as a “trip within a trip”, where you get to enjoy exploring an extra destination at no additional travel cost. To give passengers some ideas, Icelandair and Hugi even created some itineraries with suggestions depending on the length of the stopover. For a one-night stay, for example, Hugi recommends exploring Reykjavik, eating local food and soaking in a lagoon. He also recommends visitors to always be on the lookout, because, “if you’re lucky”, you might even meet some elves on your stopover. But, most importantly, as hard as it might be, you have to get back to the airport in time for your flight, otherwise Hugi and Freyja will track you down.
