Visit Greenland's Strategic Transformation: Building Value-Creating Tourism for 2035
Visit Greenland has developed a comprehensive 10-year strategy that moves beyond traditional visitor numbers to focus on "value-creating tourism". This approach prioritises quality over quantity, ensuring tourism contributes meaningfully to Greenlandic society rather than simply generating revenue. The strategy is positioning Greenland to manage tourism growth on its own terms.
The opening of Nuuk's new international airport, in November 2024, has marked a fundamental shift in accessibility, positioning Greenland as an accessible Arctic destination. This infrastructure development connects Greenland directly to new global markets like North America, which has been prompted by the launch of the first United Airlines direct flight from New York to Nuuk, taking place last week on 14 June 2025. Meanwhile, the renewal of Visit Greenland's and Icelandair's partnership has already delivered a 120% increase in seat capacity, resulting in a sizeable increase of visitors.
This transformation in connectivity has driven Visit Greenland to develop a comprehensive 10-year strategy that moves beyond traditional visitor numbers to focus on "value-creating tourism". This approach prioritises quality over quantity, ensuring tourism contributes meaningfully to Greenlandic society rather than simply generating revenue. The strategy responds directly to the opportunities and challenges, which the enhanced accessibility brings, positioning Greenland to manage tourism growth on its own terms.
The Strategic Foundation: From Growth to Value Creation
Established in the Government of Greenland’s national tourism sector plan, the strategy focuses on "turning growth into value" by attracting visitors who stay longer, spend more and engage more deeply with Greenlandic culture and communities. This represents a deliberate choice to prioritise meaningful engagement over simply the volume of tourism alone, recognising that sustainable success requires selectivity rather than scale. The strategy states that tourism must "give more than it takes", creating local employment, supporting entrepreneurship and strengthening connections between communities and international visitors.
This focus on value creation reflects tourism's current impact on Greenland. In 2024 the industry contributed to 1.245 billion DKK in value and supported 1,800 direct jobs, representing 4.9% of Greenland's GDP. These figures demonstrate tourism's substantial economic influence, but the strategy recognises that tourism's impact extends far beyond economic metrics as it touches on factors like community life, cultural preservation and environmental sustainability.
Therefore, the strategy's emphasis on developing tourism "on Kalaallit Nunaat's terms" represents a conscious rejection of externally imposed development models. This recognises that Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland's name in Kalaallisut) embodies far more than a geographical location as it represents the people's cultural identity, shared heritage and collective vision for the future. This locally-rooted approach ensures that tourism development aligns with Greenlandic values, cultural traditions and environmental priorities, acknowledging that tourism's success depends entirely on maintaining the authentic characteristics that attract visitors in the first place.
Three Strategic Pillars: Collaborative, Nationwide and Sustainable Development
Visit Greenland's approach centres on three interconnected strategic objectives that address different aspects of tourism's integration into society.
Tourism We Create Together
The first pillar, ''Tourism We Create Together'', focuses on building a shared public ownership of tourism development, addressing a critical challenge where many destinations fail because locals feel tourism is something done to them rather than with them. The strategy sets a clear target that by 2035, 80% of Greenlanders should feel they can influence tourism in their communities, while 75% should perceive tourism as contributing positively to their local area. This collaborative approach includes implementing "Nunarput Nuan", a structured dialogue model that provides the practical framework for meaningful community participation in tourism decisions. This Kalaallisut term establishes ongoing mechanisms through which local communities can actively shape how tourism develops in their areas, creating sustained engagement processes that ensure tourism planning remains responsive to local priorities as the industry evolves.
Source: Jorgo Kokkinidis for Visit Greenland
The emphasis on shared ownership addresses the fundamental sustainability challenge that tourism development without meaningful community input typically generates local resistance that undermines long-term viability. The initiative to make tourism an attractive career path for young people, targeting 50% youth interest by 2035, demonstrates this by acknowledging that tourism's long-term sustainability depends on a local workforce engagement. This objective also includes developing culturally rooted activities that create authentic encounters between locals and visitors. These activities, including dance, choirs, dog sledding and culinary traditions, serve as both meaningful cultural exchange opportunities and income streams for local communities.
From Tourism Growth to Nationwide Value
The second pillar, ''From Tourism Growth to Nationwide Value'', addresses visitor flows through a wider geographical spread of tourism activities. Currently, tourism activity is centred around Nuuk and Ilulissat, which is limiting economic benefits to other regions. Therefore, the strategy aims to inspire 30% of all travellers to visit destinations beyond these two locations by 2035. This is supported by regional destination development partnerships and strengthened regional branding initiatives. The focus will shift to the "high value-adding segments", particularly visitors interested in adventure tourism. The goal is that by 2035, 50% of tourism growth will come from these high-value segments.
This reflects a strategic market positioning, which recognises that Greenland cannot compete on volume with established destinations but can offer unique experiences unavailable elsewhere. This approach aligns with Greenland's natural advantages, like dramatic landscapes, unique wildlife and pristine environments, while ensuring visitor spending patterns support local businesses and services across multiple regions rather than concentrating in gateway destinations.
Visit Greenland plans to strengthen this objective through updated national brand positioning as an adventure destination, targeted marketing towards adventure segments, enhanced regional destination development partnerships and improved digital capabilities across the tourism sector. The strategy targets 80% of tourism operators to be actively using digital tools by 2035, with 100% having access to relevant digital platforms that enhance visibility and business performance. This digital transformation addresses a significant challenge for small Greenlandic operators who often lack resources to effectively market themselves to international audiences.
The final pillar, ''Tourism That Cares for and Protects Our Land'', establishes sustainability as fundamental rather than supplementary to tourism development, recognising that Greenland's tourism appeal depends entirely on preserving the pristine environments and authentic cultures that attract visitors. The strategy mandates that all operators access sustainability training, with 50% achieving formal certification by 2035.
This comprehensive approach includes developing quality and sustainability labelling systems, implementing responsible cruise tourism practices and establishing a structured knowledge programme to monitor tourism's environmental and social impacts. The structured knowledge programme will monitor tourism's impact on local communities and vulnerable environments, enabling regulation based on data and metrics for responsible tourism development, local input and sustainability principles.
Overall, these three pillars work together strategically in helping Visit Greenland with the transition into becoming a more accessible destination. The principle of establishing community ownership ensures that sustainability measures have local support and that regional development happens on communities' terms. Meanwhile, pivoting visitor flows into different regions give more communities reason to support tourism and benefit from the economical value the sector brings.
Source: Jorgo Kokkinidis for Visit Greenland
Digital Transformation and Market Positioning
A critical component of Visit Greenland's strategy involves digital transformation across the tourism sector, addressing the reality that small operators in remote locations face significant challenges accessing international markets without digital capabilities. To address this and the ongoing infrastructural development, Visit Greenland has launched an updated version of their website.
The new website features filtered search capabilities that allow different visitor segments to find experiences matching their interests and travel styles, through a dedicated ''Providers'' page. This segmented approach supports Visit Greenland's strategy of attracting high-value visitors while ensuring local operators can connect directly with their target markets.
Another website update includes the dedicated ''Destination pages'', which showcase the unique characteristics of each region through an interactive map that leads to individual landing pages for each of the regions. The pages feature editorial content, which unlock insights on the region and map illustrations, which visualises the region's assets and activities that attract visitors.
Visit Greenland also plans to develop a digital training programme for international travel trade partners, recognising that the people who sell Greenland holidays significantly influence visitor expectations and behaviour. This programme will ensure that tour operators and travel agents understand Greenland as a responsible and diverse destination, moving beyond stereotypes to showcase variety across regions and seasons while teaching proper protocols and cultural sensitivities. By educating travel trade partners, they can ensure visitors arrive better informed, designed for genuinely interested travellers, supporting local operators through knowledgeable partners to reduce the risk of negative visitor behaviour as a result of overtourism.
Implementation Through Partnership and Knowledge
The strategy's implementation relies heavily on collaborative partnerships across government, industry and communities, reflecting the recognition that sustainable tourism development requires coordination across multiple stakeholders whilst also working hard to maintain local ownership of development decisions. Visit Greenland positions itself as a facilitator enabling shared value creation rather than controlling tourism development centrally, acknowledging that top-down development often fails because it doesn't account for local knowledge, community capacity or cultural values.
Partnership development also includes strengthening collaboration with educational institutions to inspire future tourism industry participation, working with labour market stakeholders to identify required skills and competencies whilst engaging with international partners to develop research-based methods for measuring public sentiment towards tourism. This comprehensive approach ensures that implementation builds local capacity while maintaining international connectivity.
DTTT Take:
Visit Greenland's strategy represents a well considered response to the opportunities and challenges created by improved international connectivity, demonstrating that accessibility improvements can serve local priorities when managed strategically. By prioritising value creation over volume and growth, community engagement over external control and adaptive management over rigid planning, the strategy provides a framework for tourism development that serves local priorities while meeting international visitor expectations.
Prioritise value creation over volume metrics: Destinations must strategically manage growth by focusing on high-value visitor segments rather than pursuing traditional volume-based tourism models. The shift from measuring success through visitor numbers to evaluating meaningful economic and social contributions represents a fundamental transformation in destination management.
Embed community ownership in tourism development: Recognising that sustainable tourism requires local support, destinations must establish structured dialogue mechanisms that give communities genuine influence over tourism planning decisions. Visit Greenland's target of 80% community influence by 2035 demonstrates how measurable community engagement can prevent the resistance that undermines long-term tourism viability.
Implement digital transformation as accessibility equaliser: Small operators in remote destinations face significant barriers accessing international markets without digital capabilities. Comprehensive digital training programmes, enhanced platform access and targeted market connection tools become essential infrastructure investments that ensure connectivity improvements benefit local businesses.
Develop sustainability as core competitive advantage: Rather than treating environmental protection as a compliance requirement, destinations must position sustainability as their primary market differentiator. Mandatory operator training, formal certification programmes and data-driven impact monitoring create the robust frameworks necessary to preserve the authentic characteristics that attract visitors.
Establish strategic geographic distribution: Systematic regional development partnerships, enhanced destination branding and targeted marketing towards adventure segments can redistribute visitor flows while maintaining quality standards and authentic local experiences across multiple locations.
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The opening of Nuuk's new international airport, in November 2024, has marked a fundamental shift in accessibility, positioning Greenland as an accessible Arctic destination. This infrastructure development connects Greenland directly to new global markets like North America, which has been prompted by the launch of the first United Airlines direct flight from New York to Nuuk, taking place last week on 14 June 2025. Meanwhile, the renewal of Visit Greenland's and Icelandair's partnership has already delivered a 120% increase in seat capacity, resulting in a sizeable increase of visitors.
This transformation in connectivity has driven Visit Greenland to develop a comprehensive 10-year strategy that moves beyond traditional visitor numbers to focus on "value-creating tourism". This approach prioritises quality over quantity, ensuring tourism contributes meaningfully to Greenlandic society rather than simply generating revenue. The strategy responds directly to the opportunities and challenges, which the enhanced accessibility brings, positioning Greenland to manage tourism growth on its own terms.
The Strategic Foundation: From Growth to Value Creation
Established in the Government of Greenland’s national tourism sector plan, the strategy focuses on "turning growth into value" by attracting visitors who stay longer, spend more and engage more deeply with Greenlandic culture and communities. This represents a deliberate choice to prioritise meaningful engagement over simply the volume of tourism alone, recognising that sustainable success requires selectivity rather than scale. The strategy states that tourism must "give more than it takes", creating local employment, supporting entrepreneurship and strengthening connections between communities and international visitors.
This focus on value creation reflects tourism's current impact on Greenland. In 2024 the industry contributed to 1.245 billion DKK in value and supported 1,800 direct jobs, representing 4.9% of Greenland's GDP. These figures demonstrate tourism's substantial economic influence, but the strategy recognises that tourism's impact extends far beyond economic metrics as it touches on factors like community life, cultural preservation and environmental sustainability.
Therefore, the strategy's emphasis on developing tourism "on Kalaallit Nunaat's terms" represents a conscious rejection of externally imposed development models. This recognises that Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland's name in Kalaallisut) embodies far more than a geographical location as it represents the people's cultural identity, shared heritage and collective vision for the future. This locally-rooted approach ensures that tourism development aligns with Greenlandic values, cultural traditions and environmental priorities, acknowledging that tourism's success depends entirely on maintaining the authentic characteristics that attract visitors in the first place.
Three Strategic Pillars: Collaborative, Nationwide and Sustainable Development
Visit Greenland's approach centres on three interconnected strategic objectives that address different aspects of tourism's integration into society.
Tourism We Create Together
The first pillar, ''Tourism We Create Together'', focuses on building a shared public ownership of tourism development, addressing a critical challenge where many destinations fail because locals feel tourism is something done to them rather than with them. The strategy sets a clear target that by 2035, 80% of Greenlanders should feel they can influence tourism in their communities, while 75% should perceive tourism as contributing positively to their local area. This collaborative approach includes implementing "Nunarput Nuan", a structured dialogue model that provides the practical framework for meaningful community participation in tourism decisions. This Kalaallisut term establishes ongoing mechanisms through which local communities can actively shape how tourism develops in their areas, creating sustained engagement processes that ensure tourism planning remains responsive to local priorities as the industry evolves.
Source: Jorgo Kokkinidis for Visit Greenland
The emphasis on shared ownership addresses the fundamental sustainability challenge that tourism development without meaningful community input typically generates local resistance that undermines long-term viability. The initiative to make tourism an attractive career path for young people, targeting 50% youth interest by 2035, demonstrates this by acknowledging that tourism's long-term sustainability depends on a local workforce engagement. This objective also includes developing culturally rooted activities that create authentic encounters between locals and visitors. These activities, including dance, choirs, dog sledding and culinary traditions, serve as both meaningful cultural exchange opportunities and income streams for local communities.
From Tourism Growth to Nationwide Value
The second pillar, ''From Tourism Growth to Nationwide Value'', addresses visitor flows through a wider geographical spread of tourism activities. Currently, tourism activity is centred around Nuuk and Ilulissat, which is limiting economic benefits to other regions. Therefore, the strategy aims to inspire 30% of all travellers to visit destinations beyond these two locations by 2035. This is supported by regional destination development partnerships and strengthened regional branding initiatives. The focus will shift to the "high value-adding segments", particularly visitors interested in adventure tourism. The goal is that by 2035, 50% of tourism growth will come from these high-value segments.
This reflects a strategic market positioning, which recognises that Greenland cannot compete on volume with established destinations but can offer unique experiences unavailable elsewhere. This approach aligns with Greenland's natural advantages, like dramatic landscapes, unique wildlife and pristine environments, while ensuring visitor spending patterns support local businesses and services across multiple regions rather than concentrating in gateway destinations.
Visit Greenland plans to strengthen this objective through updated national brand positioning as an adventure destination, targeted marketing towards adventure segments, enhanced regional destination development partnerships and improved digital capabilities across the tourism sector. The strategy targets 80% of tourism operators to be actively using digital tools by 2035, with 100% having access to relevant digital platforms that enhance visibility and business performance. This digital transformation addresses a significant challenge for small Greenlandic operators who often lack resources to effectively market themselves to international audiences.
The final pillar, ''Tourism That Cares for and Protects Our Land'', establishes sustainability as fundamental rather than supplementary to tourism development, recognising that Greenland's tourism appeal depends entirely on preserving the pristine environments and authentic cultures that attract visitors. The strategy mandates that all operators access sustainability training, with 50% achieving formal certification by 2035.
This comprehensive approach includes developing quality and sustainability labelling systems, implementing responsible cruise tourism practices and establishing a structured knowledge programme to monitor tourism's environmental and social impacts. The structured knowledge programme will monitor tourism's impact on local communities and vulnerable environments, enabling regulation based on data and metrics for responsible tourism development, local input and sustainability principles.
Overall, these three pillars work together strategically in helping Visit Greenland with the transition into becoming a more accessible destination. The principle of establishing community ownership ensures that sustainability measures have local support and that regional development happens on communities' terms. Meanwhile, pivoting visitor flows into different regions give more communities reason to support tourism and benefit from the economical value the sector brings.
Source: Jorgo Kokkinidis for Visit Greenland
Digital Transformation and Market Positioning
A critical component of Visit Greenland's strategy involves digital transformation across the tourism sector, addressing the reality that small operators in remote locations face significant challenges accessing international markets without digital capabilities. To address this and the ongoing infrastructural development, Visit Greenland has launched an updated version of their website.
The new website features filtered search capabilities that allow different visitor segments to find experiences matching their interests and travel styles, through a dedicated ''Providers'' page. This segmented approach supports Visit Greenland's strategy of attracting high-value visitors while ensuring local operators can connect directly with their target markets.
Another website update includes the dedicated ''Destination pages'', which showcase the unique characteristics of each region through an interactive map that leads to individual landing pages for each of the regions. The pages feature editorial content, which unlock insights on the region and map illustrations, which visualises the region's assets and activities that attract visitors.
Visit Greenland also plans to develop a digital training programme for international travel trade partners, recognising that the people who sell Greenland holidays significantly influence visitor expectations and behaviour. This programme will ensure that tour operators and travel agents understand Greenland as a responsible and diverse destination, moving beyond stereotypes to showcase variety across regions and seasons while teaching proper protocols and cultural sensitivities. By educating travel trade partners, they can ensure visitors arrive better informed, designed for genuinely interested travellers, supporting local operators through knowledgeable partners to reduce the risk of negative visitor behaviour as a result of overtourism.
Implementation Through Partnership and Knowledge
The strategy's implementation relies heavily on collaborative partnerships across government, industry and communities, reflecting the recognition that sustainable tourism development requires coordination across multiple stakeholders whilst also working hard to maintain local ownership of development decisions. Visit Greenland positions itself as a facilitator enabling shared value creation rather than controlling tourism development centrally, acknowledging that top-down development often fails because it doesn't account for local knowledge, community capacity or cultural values.
Partnership development also includes strengthening collaboration with educational institutions to inspire future tourism industry participation, working with labour market stakeholders to identify required skills and competencies whilst engaging with international partners to develop research-based methods for measuring public sentiment towards tourism. This comprehensive approach ensures that implementation builds local capacity while maintaining international connectivity.
DTTT Take:
Visit Greenland's strategy represents a well considered response to the opportunities and challenges created by improved international connectivity, demonstrating that accessibility improvements can serve local priorities when managed strategically. By prioritising value creation over volume and growth, community engagement over external control and adaptive management over rigid planning, the strategy provides a framework for tourism development that serves local priorities while meeting international visitor expectations.
Prioritise value creation over volume metrics: Destinations must strategically manage growth by focusing on high-value visitor segments rather than pursuing traditional volume-based tourism models. The shift from measuring success through visitor numbers to evaluating meaningful economic and social contributions represents a fundamental transformation in destination management.
Embed community ownership in tourism development: Recognising that sustainable tourism requires local support, destinations must establish structured dialogue mechanisms that give communities genuine influence over tourism planning decisions. Visit Greenland's target of 80% community influence by 2035 demonstrates how measurable community engagement can prevent the resistance that undermines long-term tourism viability.
Implement digital transformation as accessibility equaliser: Small operators in remote destinations face significant barriers accessing international markets without digital capabilities. Comprehensive digital training programmes, enhanced platform access and targeted market connection tools become essential infrastructure investments that ensure connectivity improvements benefit local businesses.
Develop sustainability as core competitive advantage: Rather than treating environmental protection as a compliance requirement, destinations must position sustainability as their primary market differentiator. Mandatory operator training, formal certification programmes and data-driven impact monitoring create the robust frameworks necessary to preserve the authentic characteristics that attract visitors.
Establish strategic geographic distribution: Systematic regional development partnerships, enhanced destination branding and targeted marketing towards adventure segments can redistribute visitor flows while maintaining quality standards and authentic local experiences across multiple locations.
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