The breeze off the iceberg-strewn fjord cuts cold, but in the hushed light of dawn, a small boat slips from the harbor in Ilulissat. Inside, a local boat captain runs his hand over the polished wood, listening to the slow scrape of ice on the hull.
He knows this place intimately — glaciers groan in the distance, sea birds wheel overhead, and in summer, thousands of foreign visitors drift past, sometimes oblivious to the fragile balance of life here.
Greenland is opening its arms to the world — but cautiously. In January 2024, in a landmark move, the island’s autonomous government introduced a “green tax” on cruise passengers to help guard this remote, fragile frontier.
The surcharge — DKK 50 (≈ £5.70) per passenger — is added to the existing port and tonnage fees. And crucially, the revenues are retained by the municipalities where they’re collected, rather than being pooled centrally.
It was not an overnight decision. The idea had emerged from months of heated consultations, interviews with 43 cruise-industry stakeholders, and a recognition that unchecked growth would exact a toll on landscapes, local communities and Greenland’s very identity.
“Some operators wanted only [small] expedition cruises… others wanted big, conventional cruise ships,” recalled Helene Steffersen of Visit Greenland, “but the only thing they all agreed on was that we needed to look at our tax system.”
The Promise And The Peril
Greenland has a paradox: immense, mostly untouched wilderness, but only small towns and limited infrastructure to absorb growth. In recent years, cruise traffic surged.
In 2023, the number of tourists disembarking in Greenland rose dramatically — in Qaqortoq, for example, two giant ships once disembarked over 4,200 visitors in a town of 3,000.
The strain was obvious — local businesses complained, residents worried that a flood of visitors would trample delicate ecosystems and overwhelm small towns.
At the same time, Greenland is carefully rebalancing its economy. For decades, the nation’s prosperity has relied heavily on fish exports.
However, unpredictable catches, changing ocean conditions, and growing international competition have prompted policymakers to look for new sources of growth. Tourism, though still a developing sector, has emerged as a promising avenue for diversification.
Early indicators suggest that this shift is already underway. Following the recent opening of Nuuk’s international airport, visitor interest has surged, with passenger numbers showing a notable year-on-year increase at the start of 2025.
Upcoming direct flights from New York to Nuuk — once considered unlikely — are expected to further boost arrivals, potentially transforming both the scale and the sustainability challenges of Greenland’s tourism landscape.
To avoid the worst pitfalls of overtourism, Greenland passed a sweeping tourism reform law, effective 1 January 2025, creating zoning systems (green, yellow, red zones), new licensing regimes, and a requirement that tourist businesses be majority-owned by Greenlandic residents.
One striking example of tension is Ilulissat. Once poetic quietude, the town now hosts morning protests: Mayor Lars Erik Gabrielsen has urged locals to hold signs and ask cruise ships to divert — not out of hostility to tourists, but to protest that many operators marginalize local businesses.
Small operators say they’ve been excluded from contracts or undercut by larger firms based elsewhere in Greenland or Denmark. In one heated moment, neighbors stopped talking over disputes of which vessels docked, and who benefitted.
People On The Ground
In Nuuk, a young Greenlandic entrepreneur named Casper Frank Moller sits in a modest living room, maps of fjords on the walls. He co-founded a firm, Raw Arctic, offering small-scale fly fishing, whale watching, and glacial hiking. “We are probably one of the fastest-growing companies in 2024,” he said. Yet he speaks of caution. “Quality tourism, not quantity,” is his mantra.
In Ilulissat, on a sunny summer day, a grandmother knitting by her window eyes a cruise liner at anchor, vast and impersonal.
She recalls when only a handful of visitors passed through annually — “We had time to breathe,” she says. Now, she worries whether the next generation will inherit the quiet dignity of the fjords, or a hollowed, commodified version of it.
A boatman nearby, who has offered local excursions for decades, says he welcomed the green tax — “We pay for the damages, the infrastructure we need. Now the funds come back to us.” But he admits resentment: “Why do large outfits still dominate docking rights? I can’t always compete when I’m small.”
Challenges Ahead
The new legislation has not been universally praised. Critics argue it may deter much-needed foreign investment. In 2025, Greenland’s Economic Council warned that the two-thirds majority ownership rule might choke capital flow.
Furthermore, the tourism “boom” is already pushing capacity: during peak summer, seats, hotel beds, and tour capacities are nearly fully booked — without fresh investment, the system risks a bottleneck.
Some operators, particularly long-established Danish or Greenlandic firms, say they feel squeezed. Jon Krogh, founder of glamping firm Nomad Greenland, said the new rules destroyed his company’s value and stifled expansion hopes. “We need a reality check,” he warned, “Greenland is special, but not immune to business realities.”
Yet many see this very moment as a pivotal chance. Greenland is not responding to overtourism after the fact — it is trying to define sustainable tourism from the outset. Rather than become another trophy destination, it is positioning itself as the world’s “slow frontier.”
In April 2025, Reuters framed Greenland’s shift: cruise visits bring revenue, but also “environmental risks to polar regions” and questions about regulation, balance, and growth.
And in December 2024, The Guardian reported the island’s tourism law as part of a broader debate: Greenland wants foreign arrival, but insists that the growth must not echo a colonial extraction pattern.
A Hopeful Horizon
As the boat returns to Ilulissat, icebergs drift by like ancient ghosts, their reflection quivering in the fjord. A moment of silence seems natural. And in that silence lies possibility — the possibility that Greenland, with its people, landscapes and stories, can teach the larger world a new path.
The green tax is modest in scale, and the challenges ahead are significant. But the spirit behind it matters deeply: the conversation is now anchored in sovereignty, ecological integrity, and local voice. Tourism will come, inevitably. The question is: how?
Greenland has chosen not simply to open its doors, but to ask — gently, firmly — on whose terms. And perhaps that is the greatest gift this great island can offer: a model not of imperial tourism, but of guardian tourism, rooted in responsibility, dignity, and hope.
Sources:
Positive News
Lemonde
Reuters
