Greenland's airports expanding; tourism expected to grow rapidly

Greenland is in the news for all the wrong reasons at the moment as the new US regime weighs up the possibility of annexing the country from Denmark, a NATO ally, for political defence reasons, among possible others.

The more probable outcome of that is a negotiated settlement by which the US military returns to Greenland in numbers, reopening old bases and possibly building new ones, operating as sovereign territory.

But this little complication comes just as Greenland has opened a new (rebuilt) airport at the capital, Nuuk, and is partway towards completing two others.

Collectively they are intended finally to put Greenland, a big country but with a tiny population, on the tourist map, attracting many more visitors from Europe and North America and opening up a myriad of travel options that did not previously exist.

Certainly the world's tourism and lifestyle media is convinced that will happen.

The two strands may run complementary to each other, or they may be in conflict.

One way or another, it behoves the Greenlandic and Danish governments to agree their strategy and play their card sooner, rather than later.