Innovative Community Engagement in Ittoqqortoormit With our increased emphasis on engagement with local communities in the Arctic, and the growth of expedition tourism in Scoresbysund, Greenland, Quark Expeditions began investigating innovative and meaningful ways to integrate local narrative into our expedition experience. Through the resulting initiative, we invited four community members to join us on two voyages on Ocean Nova during the Arctic 2019 season. These community ambassadors were paid for their time and were expected to do nothing more than share the experience of a Quark Expedition voyage with our guests, and their perspectives whenever and however they felt most comfortable doing so. Our first guests were Evald, a senior hunter from the community, and his wife Karula. They were incredible guests who enthusiastically immersed themselves in the experience and in the onboard culture. They walked with our guests across landing sites, pointing out specific bones and
artifacts along the way, taking time to describe their meaning and origin in detail. They openly shared their reflections about their life experiences on the land with our guests. Upon their return home, they planned to meet with the community to share their experiences and information about the way Quark Expeditions operates and what we communicate to our guests. For Evald and Karula, for our guests, and for the expedition team, it was a very positive experience. And we hope that it will be similarly positive for the community in the long term, as they define what tourism in Ittoqqortoormit looks like.
45 | For more information, contact Quark Expeditions at Sustainability@QuarkExpeditions.com
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