Greenland’s message to the world: Come visit

Greenland’s tourism industry is expecting a boom this year following the launch of its first airline route between its capital, Nuuk, and the U.S. The mineral-rich Arctic island already offers whale-watching, birdwatching excursions and guided charters. Now locals want to show visitors why the island’s unique beyond a recent diplomatic dustup with U.S. President Donald Trump. Staff member Nukartaa Andreassen is happy to welcome visitors, but she’s keen to stress the importance of people experiencing real Greenlandic culture. “It’s important for me to show our own culture, our own nature, not by television or like not by other people from other countries,” she says. Frank Møller of Raw Arctic insists the views of the tiny 56,000 population are taken into consideration by tourism bosses. “But I think the most important part is that we do it in the correct way and we try to include as many parts of the Greenlandic population as possible because we’re going see a growth. We’re going to see a capitalistic growth, and I think that the most important factor is that this is going to have like the biggest positive outcome for those who live in this country, and we should do it in a pace where everybody can follow along. Don’t do it too fast. We live 56,000 people in Greenland. And so don’t pace it, we should take our time, we should keep everyone in the loop and do our best,” he says. According to Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business, it’s important that tourism is managed. She says, “One of our ambitions is to spread out the tourism. So, you don’t only see the bigger cities, but you also go to the smaller settlements and get more a feeling of how they are living and … the nature there. … So we’re trying to accommodate everybody and give people a good experience, and I think right now what stops the number of tourism growing is lack of capacity. So I think that alone will mean that we are growing steadily and in a sustainable manner.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.