A new 130-room Tórshavn-based hotel will be part of the Hilton empire, and this and another property will double the islands’ rooms.

The Faroe Islands’ national airline Atlantic Airways has revealed that its new 130-room 4-star hotel in the capital Tórshavn will be part of the global Hilton family. It is due to open in the first half of 2020, the islands’ broadcaster Kringvarp Føroya reports.

The property, which is already under construction, will be called the Hilton Garden Inn Faroe Islands. It will bring much-needed rooms to the islands at a time when inbound tourism is increasing.

The Faroese insurance company Lív and Atlantic Airways announced back in February that they had launched the initial process of building a new hotel at Staravegur in East Tórshavn, making clear that the aim was to develop the Faroese tourism industry.

Atlantic Airways says it will run the new hotel, which is expected to cost DKK 120 million (€16 million). Martin Restorff, who has spent the last ten years working at the Faroese financial services company Eik Banki, has been named general manager.

Smyril stay
Meanwhile, Smyril Line, a Faroese shipping line that links the islands to both Denmark and Iceland, is also launching its own hotel in Tórshavn.

The islands’ tourist board, VisitFaroeIslands, says that together the two new hotels will almost double the country’s hotel capacity, which, especially in the capital, lack capacity in high season yet often have ample space in less in-demand times.

It will also open in spring 2020 and together with the Hilton will raise the total number of hotel rooms in Tórshavn from just 300 to almost 600. In the rest of the islands there is an additional tally of about 100 hotel rooms.

“We can see that tourism in the Faroe Islands continues to evolve, and that the main bottleneck in the high season is the lack of hotel capacity,” Niels Mortensen, chairman of Atlantic Airways.

“The lack of hotel capacity in Torshavn impedes growth in tourism. The Faroe Islands have a lot of Airbnb, but you can’t build tourism growth on Airbnb. The new hotel in Torshavn is necessary and will probably be a good business for us.”

The Faroe Islands’ largest hotel, the Hotel Føroyar, also has expansion plans with about 130 rooms, but these are not yet confirmed. And local businesses in the islands’ second-biggest town, Klaksvig, are planning a new hotel, but there is nothing concrete about this project,