[Nuuk]
[Tourists getting on board of whale watching tour boat]
[Whale watching tour boat]
[Tourists looking for whales]
[Whales]
[Captain steering the boat]
[Nukartaa Andreassen, who works for Nuuk Water Taxi]
[Map of Nuuk fjord on the captain’s monitor]
Nukartaa Andreassen (interview): “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.”
[Boat]
[Passengers on puffin watching tour boat]
[Island]
[Puffins on the rocks]
[Casper Frank Møller, CEO of Raw Arctic, pointing]
[Puffin]
Casper Frank Møller (interview): “Yeah there’s been a huge upside and I would say, with the entire political situation with especially Donald Trump mentioning Greenland, it has kind of put Greenland on the world map and it’s definitely a situation that Raw Arctic has used to our advantage because our goal and mission is to, yeah, it’s to present and be the ambassadors of Greenland and to show what beauty you can experience while you’re here. So, yeah, it has been a huge upside. And I think this is just the beginning.”
[Boat staff in the cabin]
[Iceberg sticking out of the water]
Casper Frank Møller (interview): “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.”
[The first direct flight from the U.S. to Greenland arriving]
[United Airlines airplane on tarmac]
[Tourists waving to locals]
Doug Jenzen (interview): “I came with the purpose of exploring some of the natural sites around the world’s largest island, hoping to support things like ecotourism and sustainable travel while supporting the local economy.”
[Greenland’s flag on whale watching boat]
[Tourists taking photos]
Pinar Saatci (interview): “It’s very exciting to be here at the other part of the world, so far away from home. It’s a very exciting and unforgettable moments.”
[Whale]
[Passengers]
[Whale]
Risskov Rejser (interview): “For me the worst thing would be, if mass tourism starts and people come here, and sort of look upon the Greenland people as if they were a living museum. It has to be done in a respectful way and you have to consider what the consequences are.”
[Exhibits at Greenland National Museum and Archives]
[Visitors waiting for the lift]
[Model of Greenlanders rowing boat]
Naaja Nathanielsen (interview): “We really want to grow the tourism sector. It’s a very good fit for many in Greenland. Tourism is about good vibes. It’s about sharing culture, sharing history. It’s about storytelling and as Inuit, that’s very much part of our heritage. So I think it makes a lot of sense to develop this sector. And we want grow it to the double amount of what it is now. Right now it’s not a lot. We had 150,000 tourists last year. So we can grow and we have potential for growing. For instance, we’re only using, I think it’s 46% of our capacity in overnight stays. So there is room for growth without going on compromise with sustainability, because we also want to grow tourism in a sustainable manner.”
[Colonial Harbor]
[Nuuk Cathedral]
[Statue of Hans Egede]
[Tourists walking]
Naaja Nathanielsen (interview): “We are, we are expecting a boost, and we can already see it. It’s getting difficult to get facilities to stay at overnight in the bigger cities. 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 their living conditions and the nature there. So we have work ahead of us still. 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.”
[Nuuk]
[Construction in progress]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.