Meet The Team: Faroe Islands

Our Routes 360 Meet the Team feature brings the people and personalities within an airport’s aviation development to the forefront. This week we speak to the Faroe Islands.

The Faroe Islands has experienced an impressive growth in visitors over the past decade, brought on by innovative destination marketing, increased airport capabilities, growing tourism infrastructure, and a travel trend towards unique and authentic destinations.

The team bringing the world to the Faroe Islands are Regin Jakobsen, CEO of Vágar Airport and Guðrið Højgaard, CEO for Visit Faroe Islands. Regin has led the airport for about five and a half years with a focus on air service development that has added Icelandair and Widerøe to service from hometown airline Atlantic Airways and SAS.

Guðrið has spent the past 13 years using focused strategies and innovative marketing campaigns to introduce the Faroe Islands to a global audience. Visit Faroe Islands has streamed live tours during the pandemic, strapped a camera on a sheep to convince Google to add the country to its Maps app, and enlisted locals to create an online database of the Faroese language to get it on Google Translate.

Together, Regin and Guðrið closely collaborate on airline outreach, whether fostering growth among the Faroe Island’s existing airlines or recruiting new ones to the country.

What achievements are you most proud of?

A hallmark of Faroe Islands tourism is the steady increase in accessibility to the country while carefully preserving the characteristics that make the Faroe Islands a wonderful place to visit. Protecting its sustainability even involves annually closing some hiking paths for several days of maintenance conducted by international volunteers. More recently, Visit Faroe Islands developed a new national tourism strategy designed to preserve the country’s culture, language, and heritage while enabling a growing number of visitors to experience it for themselves. The process enabled all 55,000 Faroese to have their say – the first time an entire population was involved in a national tourism strategy.

In addition to a strong partnership with Atlantic Airways and SAS, the airport has welcomed two new airlines to the Faroe Islands. Widerøe arrived from Bergen in September 2021 and has increased access to the Nordics for both leisure and business travel. Icelandair launched service in May 2024, with improved North American connectivity that had an immediate benefit for tourism growth from Canada and the U.S.

Click here to see Vagar Airport - Faroe Islands dedicated route development profile on Routes 360.

What is your approach to building and maintaining airline relationships?

The Faroe Islands offers a unique combination of incredible natural island beauty, stark Nordic landscapes, rich cultural experiences, and vibrant art scene in a country that is simultaneously remote and easily accessible. The past decade has seen a substantial growth in hotel accommodation, travel infrastructure (including tunnels between islands), and now a new sports and exhibition hall for international events.

While the ability for airlines to offer something new to their passengers is inherently enticing, building the business case for a place as different as the Faroe Islands takes time. Visit Faroe Islands collaborates with tour operators in airlines’ home markets alongside Faroese suppliers and providers to ensure the carriers have the support they need to fill their seats. Regin and Guðrið carefully cultivate airline relationships to foster close partnerships and meet the specific needs of each individual carrier.

Which destination is on your bucket list to visit and why?

Guðrið would like to visit Japan since it would allow her to share the trip to her daughter’s dream destination.

Regin finds it difficult to pick just one favorite destination as there are so many interesting ones to choose from, but even though having been there several times, Tuscany is always great to visit.

What is the one item you ensure to pack when travelling for work or leisure?

Guðrið takes her whole life on every trip, which is to say she is never without the camera, wallet, phone book, and connectivity of her mobile phone.

For Regin there are in fact two items that are always packed when travelling, and those are the phone, of course, and the laptop.

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