Ilulissat’s mayor has called for protests as local operators are frozen out of a booming visitor trade
It is known as the “iceberg capital of the world” but to the mayor of Ilulissat in northern Greenland, it is also a town divided where friends and neighbours have stopped talking to each other in a dispute over the cruise ships that bring tourists to see its frozen wonders.
Its Unesco-listed icefjord draws thousands of visitors in the summer months, each potentially bringing lucrative business to the town. But frustrated local tour operators say they are being shut out by larger companies from elsewhere in Greenland and Denmark, who are undercutting local businesses or excluding them entirely – while local boats sit unused in the harbour.