  Existence and uniqueness as well as the iterative approximation of fixed
points of enriched almost contractions in Banach spaces are studied. The
obtained results are generalizations of the great majority of metric fixed
point theorems, in the setting of a Banach space. The main tool used in the
investigations is to work with the averaged operator $T_\lambda$ instead of the
original operator $T$. The effectiveness of the new results thus derived is
illustrated by appropriate examples. An application of the strong convergence
theorems to solving a variational inequality is also presented.
