Greenland might be the new travel hot spot, thanks to President Trump.
Since Trump expressed his interest in buying Greenland (and Denmark’s prime minister called it absurd), some travel groups, along with the country’s tourism board, have seen an uptick in interest for vacation packages and tours for the country.
When Trump announced his consideration on August 16, Nordic Visitor saw a significant rise in online users viewing its vacation packages.
“[T]raffic to our Greenland site increased by more than 2,800%, compared to the same date in 2018,” the travel agency said in a statement to CNN Travel. “Ongoing traffic has been up by more than 600% on last year since last Friday.”
Nordic said 69% of this week’s visits to its Greenland site have been from the US, which is a 31% increase from the 2018 equivalent weekly share of 38%.
And when the President tweeted an image of Trump Tower on Greenland, traffic spiked again. This time, it was more than 1,200% compared with last year.
“I promise not to do this to Greenland!” Trump tweeted.
“We hope this recent interest inspires more travelers from the United States to experience Greenland,” Nordic said.
Intrepid Travel has also seen a dramatic change in interest to site visitors eyeing its Greenland offerings.
The tour operator saw a 237% spike in traffic to its Greenland pages over the weekend, after the frenzy around Trump’s comments.
Intrepid said it did not have any concrete booking data yet, as it just began offering Greenland trips a few weeks ago.
“While we have previously offered cruise trips to Greenland, this is our first land-based product that allows customers to further immerse in the culture and support local businesses,” said Intrepid Travel’s regional product manager for Europe, Steph Millington.
“Tourism is in its infancy here in contrast to more popular destinations, so with demand for Greenland increasing, it’s really down to the trailblazers to set a precedent to visit the country in a responsible and sustainable manner for those who may follow in their footsteps.”
Greenland’s tourism industry is fragile as it’s still quite young.
It’s one of the few places left on Earth that can be described as remote and wild. There are icebergs towers instead of skyscrapers. Tiny settlements on the coast continue to rely on subsistence fishing to survive.
Part of the reason so many new Greenland tours are being offered now is because of climate crisis, which ironically makes the area more accessible for visitors.
Recently, Greenland’s ice sheet lost 11 billion tons of ice — in a single day. That’s the equivalent to 4.4 million Olympic swimming pools.
