As long as it is relatively expensive to transport people and goods between the Faroe Islands and the outside world, it will be very difficult to attract more people to the Faroe Islands and thus create a large enough basis for increased activity in the country. But if we increase transportation – for example, by offering cheaper airline tickets – only imagination sets the limits for the possibilities of developing society for new times and improving living conditions here.
The expensive transport is competitively disadvantageous for Faroese businesses. It’s not good enough that cheap tickets can only be bought by ordering them several months in advance. Businesses – and many others – need cheap tickets that can be purchased at short notice.
Competitors on the European mainland get away much cheaper – both when they need to move their goods or travel around the world on business trips themselves, and it’s much cheaper for customers to come to them – even if they have to travel greater distances – than it is for customers to travel to the Faroe Islands, for example. Faroese are deselected as “business partners” for precisely these reasons. And this undoubtedly puts pressure on the cost level in general.
As it is now, banks and investors hardly dare to invest in industries such as tourism, experience economy, and service industries because they know that as long as it is relatively much more expensive to travel to and from the Faroe Islands than other places, many potential tourists and business connections stay away and instead choose competitors where it is cheaper for them to spend their money.
Expensive transport thus creates a huge obstacle for many business activities that could thrive here on the rocks if circumstances were different.
Many families are also spread across different countries and have a great need to meet more often. Especially when they suddenly have to attend funerals, for example. But it’s not possible with the ticket prices that exist. This is very unfortunate when more and more people want to travel more, and more and more also want to work or collaborate across national borders. If they don’t get much better opportunities for this, these people have to move to other countries where it’s easier.
The Faroe Islands Must Be Opened Up
The expensive transport effectively fences in the country and isolates the population. The feeling that we are more isolated than others in the countries around us, which we compare ourselves to, results in many Faroese getting what the Danes call “ø-kuller” (island fever). When society closes too much around itself, more people are hit by wanderlust, which increases the likelihood that more people choose to move away from the country. This probably has much greater significance than most people realize.
If Faroese society is to have a chance in the future, people in general must have the opportunity to travel like others, have profitable work like others with what they are passionate about, and generally have the opportunity for a lifestyle here that they thrive with. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that more and more Faroese feel more like a part of the global society (often it’s women) than they feel like a part of the old traditional Faroese society – at least the part that closes in on itself.
Something must therefore be done about the barriers to increased transport between us and the outside world. If the customer base is also to be increased in the Faroe Islands for industries other than fishing and aquaculture, access to the Faroe Islands and out into the world must become much easier, more flexible, and cheaper. The “highways” between the Faroe Islands and the outside world must and should simply be expanded! Never fast enough.
The Faroe Islands, each and every one of the islands, is a peripheral area that thirsts for more flexible transport with the outside world so as not to die out. This is something that we can only do something about together. A single airline cannot make it work – not with the current customer base – if the ticket price is to come down. We also don’t get the competition that brings prices down, because other airlines are obviously not queuing up to be allowed to fly to the Faroe Islands. They stay away because they know very well that it’s not profitable the way it is now. The competition doesn’t come, if we don’t do something about it.
In short, this is a problem that bites its own tail. We don’t get cheaper tickets until the customer base is big enough, and we don’t get a big enough customer base until the tickets are cheap enough.
We Must “Expand the Highways”
We therefore need to consider the possibility of whether it would not pay off for the public to use some of the tax money to “expand the highways” to and from the Faroe Islands – i.e., support transport, just as transport to and from the outer islands is supported because it is a prerequisite for people wanting to live there. What society thus loses on the “carousel” can undoubtedly be earned back many times over on the “swing”.
Who pays for the highways out into the world elsewhere? The taxpayers do – gladly, because everyone knows that it’s for the common good. The air connection is our highway to the world – we have no other way to travel to and from the outside world than by plane and ship. These ‘highways’ are just as necessary for us to have as it is necessary for other countries to have highways and railways to the outside world for society/business to function optimally there. Therefore, it is natural that the public – i.e., all of us – help pay.
But if the tickets become cheaper, won’t many more Faroese just travel abroad to spend their money? Yes, perhaps to some extent, but many more people will also come to the Faroe Islands to spend their money here. And many more companies will see the advantage of having headquarters here when expensive tickets are no longer an obstacle.
This is an investment that can give a lot back, so that in the end it benefits the whole society. The better we are at “selling” ourselves, the more activity we create, the more people are attracted here. People will not feel so isolated, and society will become much more varied and exciting. This will make it much more attractive to live in the Faroe Islands.
Are There Disadvantages to Opening Up the Faroe Islands More?
But it’s as if those in power have a built-in reluctance to do anything about this. Some may fear that if we open up the country more and make it easier and cheaper to travel to and from the Faroe Islands, this will change society into something we can no longer recognize ourselves in. We will lose values that we have now. Some might want to ask: “Isn’t that too high a price to pay for creating more business opportunities? Aren’t we better off by being a bit cut off from the outside world? And by just sticking to what we’re used to?”
I understand the fear. But in reality, we have no choice, because if we let things be, society stands still – and then we are in far greater danger of the population constantly falling, so that in the end only older Faroese are left in the Faroe Islands, because the young, productive and energetic people move away little by little. We can’t afford that under any circumstances anyway.
I don’t think we should be so afraid of opening up the Faroe Islands more. Although we move forward and develop, it doesn’t mean we have to throw away everything here that we cherish. On the contrary! Perhaps increased transport to and from the outside world can actually help us preserve something that today seems doomed. With a little imagination, it is quite possible to preserve much of what many perceive as the basis for our identity as Faroese – just adapted to the new time. We build our identity ourselves all the time.
How Do We Best Utilize the Values?
With sense and consideration, it is possible to preserve the best of what we have, which benefits us all – precisely by utilizing it, and then letting go of other things that only hold us back. Globalization, for example, does not force us to throw away all traditions that Faroese value, are proud of and do not want to be without. With a little imagination and renewal, traditions can actually get new life, rather than completely perishing. It’s about thinking them into the new time and putting them into a new context.
In reality, the traditional lifestyle, which is still possible to live here if you want – and which is so closely linked to the environment and the weather we have in the Faroe Islands – fits perfectly with the global “simple living” trend. Think, for example, of the very popular TV shows like “The Farmer”.
There are countless opportunities to deliver unique products and enriching experiences to a world that thirsts for exactly what we can offer, if we manage to market it in the right place at the right time. It’s just about being able to tell the good story to the right target groups. The power of good “storytelling” is very underestimated as it is now. So much more can be achieved here if more people start to understand better how we can utilize our ability to tell “the good story” about the Faroe Islands.
The simple and pure raw materials we have can become sought after worldwide if we manage to adapt and market them correctly. Many of them may not be mass-produced, but this can be turned into an advantage when demand is greater than supply. It may be possible to produce enough for the “connoisseurs” who will pay extra, as we are already doing to an increasing extent.
Examples of Values that Can Be Better Utilized
For example, our chefs have helped set a whole movement in motion, where the world has really opened its eyes to the values of North Atlantic food. Just think of KOKS, which has been named the best restaurant in the Nordic countries, and NOMA, which has been named the world’s best restaurant. The finest restaurants in the world serve food made from Faroese raw materials. Just as Guðrun & Guðrun have managed to create a knitted sweater trend that has spread like wildfire around the world. Even the world-famous magazine The New York Times has started writing that the Faroe Islands are “hip”.
But there are even more possibilities than those we have already begun to exploit. We have an abundance of creative people and cultural products of all kinds in the Faroe Islands. For example, Faroese musicians are world-class. The music Faroese make today has global potential. Also other Faroese crafts, such as boat building, and maybe also Faroese horses, just to name a few examples, can become both experience and export goods that others will buy to a much greater extent with the world as a market, if we focus on it with our abilities for fantastic “storytelling”.
“Adventure” and “extreme sport” experiences are extremely popular worldwide at the moment. Some have begun to offer this in the Faroe Islands with success. We have rich opportunities to offer tourists different experiences – of course sensibly adapted to Faroese nature without destroying it. For example, it is possible to teach people to herd sheep, rappel on cliffs and go on fishing trips with fishing boats. More and more people are seeing these possibilities.
The Faroe Islands have a relatively clean environment – at least compared to others – and if we are skilled enough to protect and take good care of the environment in a sustainable way, we can to a much greater extent get something out of it, so it can become a gain that yields something.
We can laugh at those who offer tourists experiences such as “whale watching” and “catch & release” fishing trips, where the fish is thrown back into the sea alive, but elsewhere people get rich on such things. The whales and fish can be reused again and again to make money. So who laughs last here?
In addition, the Faroe Islands have plenty of more or less isolated and scenic places that can become excellent “sanctuaries” – real havens for those who want to get away from the world’s noise and stress to get healing and well-being and find themselves in peace and quiet here. There are also great opportunities for activities that offer services within health and well-being, for example.
Local values can thus become much more global in a way, if we just manage to see and cultivate these values and manage to use them positively, creatively and sustainably – also business-wise – for the benefit of ourselves and others.
Modern and Traditional Together
The Faroese must recognize that although some of us thrive well with the traditional life and traditional jobs, a large part of the Faroese people also want to live a different life and have other jobs. These people must also feel that there is room for them here in the country. The Faroe Islands will never become New York City anyway. But that doesn’t mean we have to go to the other extreme and pretend we can all still live like 50-100 years ago. Because most of us don’t – and don’t want to either.
Fortunately, life doesn’t have to be either-or. We have the advantage that we don’t have to choose between whether we should be EITHER traditional OR modern. These lifestyles can easily coexist to some extent, as they already partially do. Also for the individual, if he or she wants to be part of both. We can easily be “hybrid Faroese”.
It is not uncommon for people to spend part of their time, for example, developing IT systems during the day with Indians in India, and in the evening being DJs in a nightclub, while another part of their time they hike in the mountains, slaughter sheep or go fishing. This is how the time – the postmodern time – is in the Faroe Islands. The contradictions have moved into us, and many of us have adapted and gotten used to the new time and its diversity and time shifts in the global village.
This is precisely what’s good about Faroese society: that it is so full of contradictions, because isn’t that exactly what makes the country exciting to live in? Isn’t this exactly what many of us Faroese actually like so much about the Faroe Islands? And isn’t this exactly what also fascinates many foreigners who come here?
So yes, we can afford cheaper airline tickets. We must dare to take a chance. Lowering airline ticket prices costs some public money to begin with, of course, but it’s an investment that I’m sure will pay off in the long run, because it can significantly increase the income opportunities for businesses and society as a whole, so the money comes back in the form of increased tax revenues.
So fear not, dear Faroese. Let’s now get cheaper tickets, so we can really get started on developing this society for new times and improving living conditions here.