Sustaining the brand and branding sustainability: landscape as homeland in Greenland’s visual marketing

Abstract

Arctic destinations are continually reshaping their global identities to manage external expectations about the region. Existing portrayals of Greenland often stereotype the area as untouched wilderness or oversimplify its social, economic, and cultural realities. Our study combines visual analysis of cultural landscape and cultural ecosystem services (CES) to unveil a novel narrative in Greenland’s sustainable tourism branding we termed ‘landscape as homeland’. Empirically this research is based on the photographic database of Greenland’s national destination marketing organization. We explore Greenland’s destination branding as a strategic tool to define local meanings of sustainable tourism, homeland, and “Arcticness” in a branding that distinctively positions itself amidst Arctic destinations. Using pictured landscape as a dwelling place discerns locally valued CES, and realigns tourist engagements toward a culturally and ecologically integrated relationship. Applications of these findings extend to other rapidly changing regions seeking to expand economic opportunities, harnessing the synergy between destination branding and sustainable tourism. We reflect on the efficacy of our integrated CES and cultural landscape research to reveal local framings of the tourism-sustainability tension. We highlight the role of destination marketing organizations to bridge the gap between local identity, visitor expectations, and sustainable tourism development.