The Icelandic Travel Industry Association´s Award for Occupational Education for the Year 2011

Award Ceremony

On February 18th, 2011 Kynnisferdir – Reykjavik Excursions received The Icelandic Travel Industry Association´s award for occupational education for the year 2011. The award was handed over by the minister for the travel industry and was granted for the company´s educational and training programmes, for well presented manuals and for being on top in employees‘ job satisfaction and low employee turnover. The educational plan is for the years 2010-2012 and concerns all employees of Kynnisferdir – Reykjavik Excursions, in one way or another. Just ahead is a „Security Week“, where yearly continuing First Aid courses will be held, fire drills will be contucted and all members of staff, male and female, are urged to go for a check-up at the Cancer Society, with special attention on Breast and Prostate cancer. The cost of the check-up is paid by the company.

Recently all highland roads in Iceland were open again for traffic. The Reykjavik Excursions – Kynnisferdir fleet of highland busses was ready after undergoing thorough maintenance and improvement all winter long. This small fleet consists of 13 busses, 4 of whom are 4×4 vehicles and the others are bus bodies built on truck chassis.

Highland roads are usually narrow gravel roads or tracks and most rivers are unbridged. Travelling in the highlands of Iceland is an amazing adventure and an accomplishment in itself – many people like to hike, ride bicycles or rent 4×4 SUV´s to get there. We are proud of our bus fleet and specially trained drivers. It is awesome to be on a bus, crossing glacial rivers and driving tracks that in many cases can´t pass as a road, even though it´s officially a highland road! Driving such tracks you need a lot of skills and good sense – it´s not always best to cross a stream where it is shallowest, so to speak. The highland summer is very short and the vegetation in the highlands is very vulnerable and slow growing. Driving off tracks is prohibited and if someone does so, in spite of the ban, it can take several decades to heal the damage caused. The environmental factor plays a big role when we plan our highland tours as does instructing both our drivers and the passengers to treat Nature with care and respect.