TOURISM STATISTICS REPORT 2016 VISIT GREENLAND TOURISM STATISTICS REPORT This report contains, in addition to the initial summary, the following information: Key figures from tourism in Greenland 2016 (source: stat.gl) • Air Passenger stats • Cruise stats • Accommodation statistics Additional Data • User data from greenland.com (source: Google Analytics) • Market analytics data from surveys in Germany, Britain, France and USA (source: NIT Kiel) • Latest figures from Iceland (source: statice.is) • Recent international trends and tendencies (sources: Statista & Forbes) INTRODUCTION Visit Greenland has decided not to publish full tourism statistic reports for each quarter, as the number of tourists in Q1, Q2 and Q4 are so low that the statistical uncertainty becomes too great. It does not make sense to focus on quarters when the 'sample' is so small, as the data does not validly indicate the overall development of tourism. Instead, this report uses data for the whole of 2016 and compares it to data gathered from 2015, including those from the most important third quarter. This third quarter represents the summer peak season when more than half of the tourists visit the country. In Q1, Q2 and Q4 2016 there was a total of 26,987 tourists in Greenland who visited (by air), compared to 29,922 tourists who visited in Q3-16. Continued growth for tourism in Greenland The year of 2015 was one of positive growth, as there were 23.8% more tourists arriving by air compared to 2014. This is after several years of negative growth. 2016 also showed very positive growth, with a 9.9% increase of tourists arriving by air - this excludes the 1,700 one-off guests who visited Nuuk in March in connection with the Arctic Winter Games. This development is supported by overnight accommodation data, as we see a growth in the the total number of nights spent in Greenland by tourists has increased by 4.6% - a rather large percentage when compared to the 1.3% growth for the same period in 2015. What growth should we expect in the coming years? UNWTO (UN’s tourism body) has forecasted an annual global tourism growth of 3.3% between 2010 and 2030. 2015 surpassed this rate with a global growth percentage of 4%, continuing at this rate the first 9 months of 2016. The 23.8% growth rate of tourism in Greenland in 2015 is considered unusually high. While 9.9% growth for 2016 is significantly lower than the growth rate from 2014 to 2015, it is still 6 percent higher than the average global growth rate, so is in that perspective very satisfactory. Overall, it is likely that Greenland can continue to grow in the coming years, but it depends a lot on factors that will be highlighted in this report. THE NUMBER OF TOURISTS BY AIR 2016 vs 2015 The most positive indicators for 2016 was the total increase of 9.9% more tourists travelling by air and high growth rates in the main markets of Denmark, Germany, USA, France and Britain. The actual growth percentage for Canada was probably higher, as 1,300 Canadian guests were taken out of the statistics due to the one-off event of the Arctic Winter Games in March 2016. The available data for Canada is therefore quite conservative, but we can assume that the number of guests is similar to March 2015. It should be taken into account that for countries where there is a growth rate of below 1.000 tourists (growth percentage in grey), the sample may be too minute to indicate clear trends. Note: The data has been drawn from Greenland Statistic’s database on stat.gl. For unknown reasons, there have been insufficient registrations on the Ilulissat- Reykjavik (Air Iceland) and Ilulissat-Keflavik (Air Greenland) routes, which, according to the two airlines, lack approximately 792 tourists. If one includes these figures, the tourism segment has grown by 11.4%. THE NUMBER OF TOURISTS BY AIR - QUARTERLY GROWTH As clearly shown in the diagram there is little tourism activity in Q1, Q2 and Q4 compared to Q3. This data set covers the whole of Greenland, and represents a large enough sample to indicate a quite positive trend for the shoulder seasons, which had two-digit growth rates in Q1 and Q2 - even with 1.700 AWG guests deducted in Q1-16. Presently, over 50% of tourists who visit Greenland do so in Q3. In 2015 this proportion was 53.4%, but in 2016 the proportion was 52.6%. If this development continues, we will continue to expand the tourist season, and will expect more evenly spread visitations to Greenland over the years. In order to utilise the limited hotel and flight seat capacity, it is important to expand tourism across the year (and all over the country where there is overnight capacity). There are indications that Q3 is beginning to reach its tourism cap in popular destinations such as Ilulissat and Kangerlussuaq, as accommodation providers say that the entire Q3 is already sold out early in the season. In the case of the bigger city of Nuuk, there are still vacant beds available at accommodations in Q3. As long as there aren’t any new hotels or longer runways being built, and while there is still limited flight capacity, it makes sense to include season development as a central part of the tourism strategy. THE NUMBER OF TOURISTS BY AIR - MONTHLY GROWTH From a national perspective, when we look at tourism development in terms of months, we can observe a 2-digit growth in the shoulder seasons of February-March-April and November-December. In other words, season expansion is developing in the right direction. Mittarfeqarfiit, Greenland Airports, collects the total number of air passengers, however, the country of residence is not always registered. This creates a pool of ‘unidentified’ data, which is proportionally divided between tourists and residents registered by country. There is a small built-in imprecision in this conversion method, resulting in slight differences in the percentage distribution between tourists and residents, depending on whether one analyses monthly, quarterly or for example 12 months at a time. In short: if there are fewer passengers included in the statistics, while at the same time a large proportion of passengers are not being registered for their country of residence, there is greater chance for inaccuracy. Source: stat.gl THE NUMBER OF TOURISTS BY AIR OUT OF THE 6 INT. AIRPORTS 70% of all tourists who fly out of Greenland are registered at Kangerlussuaq, but a great deal of them are transiting to and/or from another destination or to a cruise. Unfortunately, Visit Greenland does not have data about how many tourists registered in Kangerlussuaq are on the way home from a certain destination. We can however compare this information on page 11 with the existing overnight data from each of the 5 regions in Greenland: North region, Arctic Circle region, Capital region, South region and East region. It should be taken into account that 245 out of the 986 passengers were not registered for country of residence at Nerlerit Inaat. The unidentified passengers are proportionally divided between resident and tourist data, as described on the previous page. Note: For unknown reasons, there have been insufficient registrations on the Ilulissat- Reykjavik (Air Iceland) and Ilulissat-Keflavik (Air Greenland) routes, which, according to the two airlines, lack approximately 792 tourists. Therefore these figures are not included on stat.gl. If one includes these figures, the Ilulissat route has a growth of 12.3% instead of negative growth of -10.4%, which is more plausible in view of the growth of tourist overnights. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF TOURISTS COMPARED TO 2015 In 2016 there were overall 7.6% more tourists in Greenland compared to 2015, when one includes cruise guests. Although there were fewer cruise guests in 2016, more went onshore. Pages 14 - 17 looks closer at cruise tourism. For tourists that travel to and from Greenland, we can note that circa 70% travel via Copenhagen - Kangerlussuaq, and circa 30% travel via the Iceland routes. Regarding the total number of flight passengers, including Greenlandic residents, the distribution is circa 80% via Copenhagen - Kangerlussuaq and circa 20% via Iceland. Note: the number of cruise passengers in 2015 has been adjusted by Statistics Greenland since the first national tourist report was published in Q1-16. The official number of cruise passengers in 2015 was 25,049 pax (see page 14), therefore the total number of tourists for 2015 is adjusted from 67.876 til 70.188. THE NUMBER OF BED NIGHTS AT TOURIST ACCOMMODATIONS Accommodations in Greenland (at least those of them that register data with Statistics Greenland) have had an even better year than in 2015. In 2015 there was a growth of 1.3% in relation to number of tourist overnights, and in 2016 the growth was 4.6%. The number of bed nights sold is a better indication of the development than number of guests. The first category reflects most about the total revenue, while a higher number of guests who purchase fewer bed nights than the year before can result in negative growth. The ‘good tourists’ are therefore the ones who buy over the average number of bed nights per visit to Greenland, which in 2016 was 2.7 nights/tourist. In connection with the Arctic Winter Games it is difficult to determine how many extra overnights this event generated, as many of the guests stayed in private accommodation. Thus the figures used in 2016 are similar to March 2015. THE NUMBER OF TOURIST OVERNIGHTS PER REGION When it is impossible to see in the air passenger data which tourists are in transit via Kangerlussuaq from which destination, we should look closer at the overnight data from the regions.