{"id":17223,"date":"2026-02-18T11:38:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T11:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/17223\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T11:38:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T11:38:22","slug":"trump-has-done-a-great-job-promoting-greenland-as-a-tourist-destination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/17223\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump has done a great job promoting Greenland as a tourist destination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> relentless drive to acquire Greenland hasn\u2019t been all bad news for the island. Tourism is booming. <\/p>\n

Greenland\u2019s government has been trying for years to boost tourism as a way of weaning the economy off its overreliance on fishing. Mr. Trump has proven to be an unwitting ally. <\/p>\n

Ever since he loudly insisted on buying Greenland a year ago and then ratcheted up his rhetoric last month with threats of an invasion, there\u2019s been a surge of interest in the island, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada now has a consulate in Nuuk, one of only a handful on the island.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The American consulate in Nuuk has been busier than usual recently as politicians come and go from Greenland\u2019s capital, trying to arrange a U.S. takeover of the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole world knows now where Greenland is, and before nobody knew,\u201d said Lars Anker-Moller, who runs Arctic Dream, a company that organizes boat tours, hiking trips and dog-sled excursions in eastern Greenland. His bookings were up nearly 60 per cent last summer. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like this. I\u2019ve been in the business for 15 years, and 2025 was just crazy. We went on having guests all the way to December, and that\u2019s not normal. Normally, we just end in October.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Anker-Moller equated the situation to what happened in Iceland after the Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull volcano erupted in 2010. The eruption spewed ash high into the atmosphere and caused travel chaos for weeks as airlines stopped flying over much of Northern Europe for fear of ruining jet engines. Despite the mayhem, the global attention led to a huge increase in tourism for Iceland that is still going strong today. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think some of the same will happen here. We have got a lot of free advertising of Greenland,\u201d Mr. Anker-Moller said.<\/p>\n

There are signs that\u2019s already under way. <\/p>\n

A report by Statistics Greenland concluded that there was significant growth in international interest and bookings last year. \u201cMost actors report full programs, more inquiries from new markets and increasing demand for longer, deeper and more sustainable experiences,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n

Nearly 80 per cent of the 61 tour operators surveyed by the agency said 2025 was \u201cvery good\u201d or \u201cgood.\u201d Almost 20 per cent said their reservations climbed more than 50 per cent last summer compared with 2024. Hotels also saw a 46-per-cent increase in the number of foreign guests last year, most of them Americans.<\/p>\n

The opening of a new airport in Nuuk at the end of 2024 certainly helped. Seasonal flights now come in from New York, and there\u2019s year-round service to Copenhagen and Reykjav\u00edk. Airport officials are hoping to add more European cities to the summer schedule. <\/p>\n

The National Tourist Board has also sought to capitalize on the current attention with a clever marketing campaign called \u201cShhhh\u2026\u201d that promotes Greenland as a \u201crare sanctuary in a world full of noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were concerns earlier this year that the tourism boom could go bust when Mr. Trump raised the prospect of invading the island. Bookings ground to a halt, and some travellers cancelled reservations.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Helen Danielsen, tending to the horses at her riding business in Nuuk, says she’s not worried about the Trump drama’s impact on reservations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were all very worried a few weeks ago because the atmosphere felt kind of aggressive,\u201d said Helen Danielsen, who co-owns a horse-riding centre in Nuuk called Visik and rents out a flat on Airbnb. Her flat was fully booked last year from April to November. Reservations haven\u2019t kept the same pace this year, but they picked up after Mr. Trump ruled out military action. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think people are just waiting. But I\u2019m not worried. We\u2019re used to people being kind of spontaneous,\u201d she said. The riding centre caters mainly to local children, but more tourists have also been signing up for trail rides, she added. <\/p>\n

Justin Stonkus, who lives in Halfmoon Bay, B.C., had always thought of visiting Greenland, but Mr. Trump\u2019s tirades convinced him to finally take the plunge. \u201cThere was a bit of urgency with all the geopolitical nonsense,\u201d he said while enjoying a beer in a Nuuk pub last week. Mr. Stonkus spent nine days on the island, visiting Nuuk and Ilulissat, where he toured a fjord by boat. \u201cIt exceeded my expectations,\u201d he said, showing photos of giant icebergs he saw up close. <\/p>\n

The fjords around Nuuk, whose fish that have supported Greenlandic Inuit for generations, are now increasingly a source of tourism revenue.<\/p>\n

The growth in tourism hasn\u2019t come without challenges. A lack of hotel rooms and poor transportation links make it hard for some operators to expand. And Greenland is not a cheap holiday. A return flight from Nuuk to Ilulissat, which takes 90 minutes, costs about $1,000, and a one-hour boat tour from Nuuk can set a visitor back $600. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 56,000 people living on what\u2019s equivalent to one-third of the United States. So you\u2019re limited by the infrastructure,\u201d said Casper Frank Moller, 28, who started an adventure tour company called Raw Arctic 18 months ago with a couple of partners. Raw Arctic runs boat tours, hunting and fishing trips and snowmobile excursions, working with other operators to promote their packages. The company recently partnered with a group that has opened a half-dozen cabins roughly 30 minutes from Nuuk by boat. The cabins feature saunas and spectacular views of the fjord. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Casper Frank Moller smiles and unmoors a boat of tourists for a tour across the fjord.<\/p>\n

Last summer, Mr. Frank Moller could barely keep up with demand, and bookings remain strong this winter. After a recent one-hour boat tour around Nuuk, he was fielding a call for a trip the next evening for nine people. \u201cWe kind of try to just use the current situation to our benefit,\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n

But he is concerned that the sudden influx of travellers could swamp Greenland. \u201cIt\u2019s really important that the entire Greenland economy benefits from this increased exposure,\u201d he said. \u201cBy really focusing on quality over quantity, then we can make sure that we take the development in a pace where everybody can follow along.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lars Christiansen, who lives in Copenhagen, said Danes have also begun discovering Greenland after largely ignoring it for decades. \u201cI think some Danish people are more curious,\u201d he said after stepping off a Raw Arctic boat tour. \u201cEverybody I talk with, they want to go here. I don\u2019t like Trump, but I think he has helped Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a>On the ground in Greenland: More from The Globe and MailReports from Paul Waldie<\/p>\n

Warming temperatures sow uncertainty for hunters and tour operators<\/a><\/p>\n

For biathletes, Olympic racing suits pay homage to a threatened homeland<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. relations improving but Greenland crisis not over: Denmark minister<\/a><\/p>\n

Video: Canada\u2019s new consulate in Nuuk<\/p>\n

The Globe\u2019s Paul Waldie, reporting on the official debut of a Canadian consulate in Nuuk, shares his observations on what the rare diplomatic gesture means in the geopolitics of the Trump era.<\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s relentless drive to acquire Greenland hasn\u2019t been all bad news for the island. Tourism is booming.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[12436,57,12438,12437],"class_list":["post-17223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-greenland","tag-appwebview","tag-greenland","tag-nopolly","tag-yesapplenews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}