6/1/2012- Work Life (Nuuk, Greenland)

Since a lot of people have asked and I’ve confused the living daylights out of most, I figured I should attempt to put down in writing what exactly it is I’m doing in Greenland, working for the national tourism board.

First, an anecdote to set the scene.

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One of the most amusing memories I have of my time at GWU while working on my masters was at orientation, when one of the other four students accepted into the Sustainable Destination Management concentration asked the panel of professors what, exactly, sustainable destination management meant. Dr. Donald Hawkins, the founder of our program and head of our concentration (as well as one of the leading destination management experts worldwide) took the question, smiled, and said it was the hardest question we would have to answer for our entire lives carrying that title—because there was no solid answer.

This proved true time and time again as over the past three years I have attempted to explain what exactly it is I study and practice to family, friends, acquaintances, and the occasional curious person on the street. Usually it started with me stating that I was working on my Masters in Tourism Administration with a concentration in Sustainable Destination Management—though inevitably somewhere around ‘sustainable’ their eyes would glaze over, they would think a second, and their eyes would brighten as they went back to ‘tourism’ and ask if I knew of a cheap way to get to Australia or how many tours I booked this year. Depending on how I felt I would explain that my life goal was not in fact to own a tour company, and that what I studied was more based around the concept of managing a destination’s tourism—how to gauge if a destination is in fact ready for tourists (you’d be shocked at how many think they are when in fact, tourism is a horrible idea for the community), how to plan the infrastructure needed, financing and managing the economics of tourism, planning policies for each level in the destination, marketing and managing every aspect of business that relates on any tier to tourism, etc.

At this point I’ve usually lost them for good, as their eyes have once again glazed over and they are staring out at a floating plastic bag which has caught their attention over me. And I cannot blame them; outside of those of us who are in the industry, tourism may sound intriguing, but when it comes to the details, it isn’t nearly as golden as it sounds. The conversation ends with a ‘that sounds amazing, you’re so lucky’ and a change in conversation to the most exotic destination they have been to, trying to relate.

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This pattern has proven the same as the pattern when I attempt to explain to people what it is I do with Visit Greenland. Everyone asks out of politeness (or in the case of when I’m in DC, the immediate and automatic networking assessment out whether a person is of value to your career) what it is I do, and the vast majorities give the same glassy-eyed stare detailed above. At this point I’ve gotten used to it and have a simplified answer for my degree (I work with destinations to ensure the development of tourism is sustainable to the environment and culture), for work, it comes down to what day someone asks me as to which answer I give.

Best answer? I work for the national tourism board for the country of Greenland as an intern, on a variety of projects. Technically I’m the cruise and coastal sailings intern, meaning that the majority of my work is based around preparations for, management of, and marketing towards cruises coming into the country (cruises in Greenland being anything from a 50 person sailing ship wandering up the coast to the 3,000 person ships making a transatlantic repositioning voyage and stopping over for a day). Being that the industry is relatively young in Greenland and there are very few people who are involved in the process, we are shaping how operations occur each day and attempting to find better ways of managing cruise tourism for the country.

So far between my month in Denmark and few days here in Greenland, some of what I have done includes the following:

*Updated our calling list for 2012, and created word and excel files with all pertinent information so we have backups and up-to-date information on each port of call and the ships arriving this year,

*Benchmarked our new site for cruise professionals, cruisegreenland.gl, with other B2B (business to business) sites from our competition and market baskets to gain insight on what more should be added,

*Helped campaign in the closing hours for greenland.com to win the Webby Award for best tourism website worldwide,

*Conducted an assessment on our Webby Award-winning website greenland.com in relation to cruises and coastal sailings; mapped changes to be made and where to improve,

*Completed a keyword analysis which details how each client (cruise company) brands Greenland, and mapped which could benefit from additional information. Later I will attempt to create materials or send them information which could be useful which is tailored to their specific needs or brand of the country,

*Edited and changed a legal safety document necessary to have in order for ports to provide shore excursions, and

*Written an edited press releases for Visit Greenland.

Of course there has been and will be much more than this, but it gives a good example of the projects I work on here and what it is I do in tangible concepts. Hopefully that helps =)