Vestnorden 2025: Tourism is nation building and sustainability

Dear participants, buyers and exhibitors. Good morning and welcome to the Faroe Islands. Welcome to our home and to our different homes. Welcome to Vestnorden.

And ladies and gentlemen. A famous Faroese geographer, who taught at our university was once asked by one of his pupils: Is there any place in the world, that is similar to the Faroe Islands. With the same geography. Climate. Landscape. Geology. Ocean currents. Distance to other places. Same Flora and Fauna? Well, the geographer said. I don’t know, but I will look into the matter and do some research. Three weeks later he announced to his class. I have found three other places in the world, that are exactly similar to the Faroe Islands. The same landscape. Same geography and climate and geology and wildlife and ocean and distance. Everything is exactly the same. There is only one big difference though, he added: People actually live in the Faroe Islands! Yes, people live in the Faroe Islands. Not for practical reasons.

And this is of course true for our Icelandic and Greenlandic friends in this vast West Nordic region. Against all odds, we have throughout thousand and hundreds of years managed to not only survive but to live and build sustainable nations, culture and modern societies with our own language and heritage and art and traditions and diverse local communities. And we have been able to connect each other as nations and neighbours and connect to the world. Which is of course crucial for all development and for our future.   

So, for us in the West Nordic region, tourism is nation-building and commitment to the world.

Since Vestnorden began in 1986 it has become the primary meeting- and marketplace for the vestnordic tourism industry. It is a place of cooperation, where Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands join hands to develop the whole region, as well as promoting what each nation has to offer.

Vestnorden is a concrete manifestation of the West Nordic cooperation. It is a yearly recurring affirmation of the cooperation between our nations and our industries. I truly admire the foresight of the people who took initiative to gather the tourism industry in our region, because at that time, almost forty years ago, the tourism industry was tiny, and the economic and social importance hardly noticeable.

Vestnorden has helped transforming the ambitions of a few forerunners, to a full blown industry.

I am very proud that our country is home to the NATA secretariat. NATA is not only organising Vestnorden, but also giving financial support to tourism development projects as well as financial support for cultural exchange between our people.

The tourism industry must always work to attract new customers, as well as nurturing old connections. But today more than ever, the industry must also focus on building and maintaining a fruitful cooperation with the society in which it operates.

Now tourism has become an important industry in all our countries. An industry that has created many jobs and enriched our cities and villages with new experiences. Now the challenge is to keep a steady growth, while creating a truly sustainable tourism industry and NATA is an invaluable instrument in this respect. We can learn from each other, get inspired an even align and combine what each of us has to offer.

Here in the Faroe Islands, we have recently adopted a new law on sustainable tourism. The new legislation is our primary tool to create a tourism industry which is in harmony with our nature and environment – a tourism industry that is part of nation-building. Creating wealth and jobs and infrastructure in all parts of our country, and which is also generating and re-generating social and cultural capital and nature-protection.

The keyword is democracy and local ownership. It is all about democratic sustainability. Therefore, a key element in the law is that the local communities create the framework for the tourism in their area. Each municipality is to consult with the people in the villages and the farmers and make their own binding tourism plans.

When the tourism plans are announced, our guests will be informed of the facilities in the area and they are told where they can travel freely, where and when access is restricted and also how they should behave as visitors, in order to respect the local knowledge, farming and traditions and preserving the nature.

The past few years we have seen the dissatisfaction with the tourism industry in many parts of the world. Locals are fed up with mass tourism. They are tired of seeing their cities being taken over by global tourism mastodonts to the point where their countries are no longer nice places for the locals to live.

And the tourist alike, as most of us often are, are as fed up with the implications of mass tourism. Because far more than sun and parties, we are longing for experiencing the true soul of a destination.

Because of longing, and because of the frightening changing climate, more and more tourists are coming our way.

I am confident that we can make the tourism beneficial for all parties, if we follow the new 2030 tourism strategy of Visit Faroe Islands. The strategy strives to bid our guest welcome in a sustainable way. The synthesis of the strategy, which was created through a bottom-up process, is that Faroe Islands are more than a destination – it is home. And of course you care for your home, and so do your guests.

And the same goes for our whole region, as it should for any conscious destination.

When we embrace the fact, that we are inviting people home, the strategy becomes a measuring stick, with which we can judge if we are indeed building a sustainable tourism industry.

I believe that the North Atlantic Tourism Association, and the national tourism boards can make a big difference, in applying strategies like the home strategy in the whole region, and thereby guiding the industry in the right direction, where every action is improving our homes.

I hereby officially declare Vestnorden 2024 open.

Mynd: Bárður Eklund