Maalia Skifte stands behind the coffee bar at Cafe Lolo in downtown Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. The server and barista have noticed a growing number of tourists in the city.

“They kind of take over the town, you can see them everywhere,” Skifte said.

When flights are delayed or canceled, which has been common this summer, she said the registers at the cafe are stuffed with food vouchers given to stranded customers by the national carrier, Air Greenland.

“You can feel when a flight delays and people come in to eat,” she said.

More tourists have been drawn to Nuuk since a new international airport opened there in November, allowing direct flights to the capital from the US East Coast and Europe. But problems have plagued the airport in its first year of operation. And although the influx of visitors is helping tourism revenue, it’s also straining local businesses and infrastructure in a city of just 20,000 people.

“We’re used to the cruise ships, so that’s just normal,” said Dorit Olsen, an artist who sells colorful handcrafted glass pieces at her shop in downtown Nuuk a few blocks away from Cafe Lolo. “But because of the new airport, we have had a lot of customers from abroad.”

“It’s good for business,” Olsen added, estimating a 30% increase in sales since last summer. “But because I only have two hands, like most people do, and 24 hours … it’s hard work.”

The new airport is why Carolyn von Kutzleben ended up in Greenland for a summer vacation in the first place. 

“It’s been in the planning since the spring, when United Airlines said they were opening up a non-stop flight to Nuuk,” said von Kutzleben, an American who arrived on a flight from Newark in mid-August, after the airline started direct flights from there twice a week.

Greenland also got some unexpected publicity earlier this year, which locals and visitors say has piqued curiosity in the world’s largest island. 

“What got my interest is when [US] President [Donald] Trump was elected, he was talking about Greenland a lot, about buying it or taking it over,” said Leslie Schreiber, who also visited this summer from New Jersey.

“It seem[ed] very interesting, almost like a last frontier.”

Greenland is three times the size of Texas, and draws summer travelers looking to cruise through pristine fjords to spot icebergs, whale-watch, trek to glaciers flowing out of the country’s massive ice cap or learn about Inuit culture. In the winter, dogsled rides and the northern lights are big draws. 

The territory is home to only around 57,000 people, which means even a moderate increase in visitors is easily felt by locals.

In Nuuk, utilitarian apartment buildings dot the low skyline, sitting side by side with clusters of wooden A-frame houses painted in bright primary colors. A building boom has struggled to keep up with the influx of people moving from the countryside into the capital, and locals worry that increased tourism will exacerbate housing concerns.

“Even people born here have trouble [finding] homes,” said Esther Kjaer, a Nuuk native who works at a supermarket downtown. “A lot of tourists are here, but there’s already not enough space.” 

Kjaer, 19, said she shares a student apartment with her boyfriend because they can’t find anywhere else to move, even after nearly three years of searching. 

Increasing flight passengers strain hotel capacity

Most of Greenland’s tourists in recent years have come to the island by boat. About two-thirds of the nearly 150,000 tourists in 2024 were cruise passengers.

Nuuk’s new airport was the first of three expected to open by 2026, which will boost the number of travelers arriving by air. Flight passengers bring more money into the territory, in line with the national tourism board’s goal of increasing tourism revenue over the next decade.

But more people coming through airports means more people who will need beds to sleep in, which already proved to be a problem in Nuuk over the summer.

“We don’t have enough space,” said Corinne Pedersen Halling, the front office manager at the Hotel Hans Egede, a four-star hotel in the center of downtown Nuuk.

On one day in mid-August when The World visited, Halling said all 156 rooms and 14 apartments were booked for the night.

When flights are delayed or canceled, which is common in Nuuk, hotels often get completely booked. 

“We had a situation in early July where all flights were canceled,” Halling said. “ And I had to get a little creative, and I found conference rooms and I had to put [in] extra beds.”

At least eight times this summer, Air Greenland has had to house stranded passengers in overflow accommodations, like those hotel conference rooms, the cafeteria at a local ski resort and an airport lounge.

One big problem has been the weather. It’s notoriously bad in Nuuk, and a reason critics of the new international airport have argued that it shouldn’t have been built there in the first place. High winds completely shut down the airport for a whole day last month. Fog is also a common concern.

“I think we’ve seen weather disruptions in 2025 that have, by far, exceeded anything that we’ve seen before,” said Jacob Nitter Sørensen, the CEO of Air Greenland. 

But Sørensen said the biggest single driver of delays and cancellations for his airline this year, across Greenland, were problems at the Nuuk airport itself.

“It is basically a shortage of staff,” he explained. “The new airport, with all the traffic that’s coming in this year, the need for trained and screened security staff is quite high. It has sort of been a capacity issue.”

Flights have also been delayed or canceled specifically over a lack of security staff. International departures were also suspended one day last month after Danish authorities revoked the airport’s certification for screening international passengers. Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. 

The operator of the airport did not respond to The World’s questions about recent problems there. But Sørensen, the Air Greenland CEO, said the operator was working hard to address the staffing shortages.

Greenland’s tourism board responded to The World’s questions about a lack of hotel capacity and problems at the airport by writing in an email that they’re looking at how to create a “smoother experience” for tourists and locals, and are focused on sending people beyond Nuuk. 

Despite the strained infrastructure, most locals seem genuinely happy to show off their territory and culture to more visitors.

Greenland has an economy heavily reliant on fishing. And surveys show most Greenlanders support becoming independent from Denmark. Diversifying the economy, including with tourism revenue, is seen as a key step toward independence.

Barista and server Maalia Skifte summed up a common sentiment. An increase in tourism, she said, is “mostly a good thing.” 

“In order to get to the final goal of being our own land, like not under Denmark, we have to get money from the outside.”