Greenland’s tourism is booming
Visits to the popular northern lights destination are expected to skyrocket this year, with new flight routes, airports – and, of course, President Trump’s focus.
Greenland’s politicians might be saying “enough is enough” in regard to Donald Trump’s continued campaign to take over the Danish Arctic territory, but that hasn’t stopped new visitors from landing on its shores: the country saw a 14% year-on-year rise in the number of passengers on international flights to Greenland in January, per the latest figures from Statistics Greenland.
The world’s biggest island has been on Trump’s shopping list even before his inauguration, when the then-president-elect posted on his Truth Social account around the end of last December that an American ownership of Greenland is “an absolute necessity.” Since then, Trump has doubled down on his annexation claims and put the ice-capped island, which has a population fewer than 60,000, in the headlines for much of this year.
The island’s tourism industry has seen slow but steady growth over the past decade, with overnight stays in the country rising 70% to ~355,000 last year from ~210,000 in 2014, thanks to Greenland’s determination to diversify exports away from its main fishing industry, like opening a new international airport in its capital, Nuuk. The famous northern lights destination is also anticipating some uptick in American tourist numbers in the coming months as United Airlines is set to begin the first direct flight route from New York to Greenland.
