Emilía Sigurðardóttir has the Flight plan for FlyOver Iceland

Emilía Sigurdardottir is the Sales, Marketing & Brand Experience Manager at FlyOver Iceland. This unique attraction utilizes state-of-the-art technology for its award-winning, top-rated ultimate flying ride experience.
FlyOver Iceland takes its guests on an exhilarating journey. It combines storytelling, and special effects, including scents, winds, mist, and motion, creating an unforgettable voyage over unseen Iceland.

After the preliminary pre-shows to a traditional Icelandic longhouse & the Well-of-Time, where the audience meets SúVitra, our in-house troll, specially designed seating suspends the audience safely before a 20-meter screen. It transports you on a breathtaking adventure around Iceland.

The experience is situated in Reykjavik’s vibrant Grandi harbor district. It is just a few minutes walk from the city center, surrounded by a bustling community of attractions such as the Icelandic Lava Show, the Aurora Show, and Whales Museum, galleries, and exhibitions, beautiful designer shops, cafés, and restaurants.
FlyOver Iceland is one of our many valued partners; subscribe to the Stuck in Iceland exclusive newsletter and receive promo codes to save on their admissions fee.

Before joining FlyOver Iceland, Emilia was the project manager of the Global Marketing team at Sahara, a digital marketing agency based out of Iceland and Orlando, Florida, and previously served as Head of Creative Industries at Business Iceland, where she focused on promoting Icelandic art and creative industries along with managing the Iceland Naturally sales initiative in North America.

Hey Emilia, thank you for taking the time for this interview. Please give me readers more information about your background.

My pleasure, and thank you so much for having me! Working with you and seeing how much value you put into providing reliable and valuable information to your readers is a pleasure. The growth of your platform within the last months is inspiring and reflects the remarkable recovery of the Icelandic travel market after the pandemic.

I was very fortunate in my upbringing to be brought up in all corners of the world. I was born in the United States, moved to Milan, Italy, at an early age, and attended International Schools in Italy, France, and Denmark, until I graduated from a boarding school, College Aplin Beau Soleil. Having been exposed to various cultures, religions, and nations, international business and marketing is a logical choice when developing future professional prospects. I concluded my MBA in 2019 from the University of Reykjavik, with a diploma from Babson University in Entrepreneurship.

Conditioned by my international background, I have found that it is not what you say but how you say things and to whom that can be the difference between being successful or merely losing your messaging in the constant overflow of information being consistently mediated to us.

FlyOver Iceland has a high score on the Trip Advisor review site. How did you achieve this high score and maintain it?

FlyOver Iceland is part of a larger international brand, FlyOver Attractions, a collection owned by Pursuit and a vastly diverse team of Icelandic major player shareholders. The expertise of our management team, support team, and front-line staff maintains consistency with our customers. We prioritize storytelling, guest experience, safety, and accessibility to bring our content to life. Awakening all the senses during the journey, leaving our audience inspired by the adventures we take them on. We provide meticulous training to our staff, which is regularly updated to ensure optimization to provide the most positive experiences. The employ talented staff with growth opportunities within our organization. We value diversity and inclusiveness, and strive to keep a clear dialogue across all our teams. Reporting and metrics such as our NPS score are evaluated daily, and protocols are adjusted accordingly.

We believe that all these factors contribute to our success.

Can you share what is new at FlyOver Iceland?

FlyOver Iceland and FlyOver Attractions own a production company, FlyOver Productions. The company focuses on creating breathtaking captivating stories from around the world. This allows us to host guest content during our yearly calendar. With the opening of our new location in Chicago, we will soon be bringing an exciting new movie to our guests.

We have previously shown movies such as The Wonders of the American West. That is an immersive glide over awe-inspiring rugged west. The west has vast prairies, and electric urban monuments such as the Golden Bridge in San Fransico and Windborne: Call of the Canadian Rockies that quantifies the time-worn beauty of towering peaks to calm alpine lakes and pristine snow-covered glaciers. Our goal is to consistently bring to life stories and experiences that move our guests in the most unexpected ways, leaving them inspired by the incredible world we live in.

What are your favorite places and activities here in Iceland?

Do you mean besides FlyOver Iceland? 🙂

It depends on the mood I am in. There is truly something for everyone on this tiny volcanic island. The people here have created the most eclectic and inspiring things from what any rational human being would have said was an almost uninhabitable land to start!

Iceland has always respected nature, working diligently towards being a leading country in sustainability by 2030. That being said, the appeal of untouched beauty such as the Westfjords, the stunning allure of Jökulsáarlón, the sheer elegance of the black sand beaches, the grace of gushing molten lava from our volcanos, the captivating songs sung by our roaring waterfalls, the intricate delicacy of the lush moss, or the soothing fall of snowflakes within the tranquil choreography of the auroras. 
Our capital, Reykjavik, is my favorite place. Having lived more and less abroad, there is something innovative about sheer inventiveness. Merely 100,000 people live here, and the city is bustling with experiences, attractions, and world-class restaurants. We have breweries, distilleries, breweries, and more.

What advice do you have for those visiting Iceland for the first time?

Due to our small size, some first timers traveling to Iceland may not realize how much they are able to experience during their time here. With relatively easy access to almost everything, I encourage people to research distances between places. For example, in a single day, you could easily do activities that in bigger cities or countries would take days!

For example, going for a hike, visiting a lagoon & catching dinner is totally doable in a 24-hour time frame. Book ahead of time, join groups on platforms such as Facebook, or research on Instagram/Pinterest to find hidden gems within our cultural fabric, so that you may enjoy as much of what our beautiful country has to offer.

Most importantly, stay safe and be responsible, I suggest the Icelandic Tourism Pledge, Iceland is beautiful but can be unforgiving for those that are underprepared or ill informed.