Innovative tourism products generated by Lower North Shore-Labrador Venture

Innovative tourism products generated by Lower North Shore-Labrador Venture

As part of the Lower North Shore (LNS) – Labrador Interprovincial Tourism Venture, the Whiteley Museum has designed innovative tourism products to captivate and attract tourists to extend their stays in the region. Providing a glimpse of the life of residents in Quebec’s LNS, these products will help visitors better understand and experience the lifestyle of the region’s residents.

In May 2023, the Whiteley Museum located in Bonne Espérance, Quebec, launched a new website, a video capsule series called In Their Own Voice, and a documentary video entitled The St. Paul’s River – The Once and Future Village that recounts the memories, hopes, and fears of its residents in songs and stories.

Onsite interpretive panels accompany these innovate, online digital products to illustrate the history and culture of St. Paul River’s residents.

This year-long initiative of the Whiteley Museum in one of a continuing number of efforts to provide tourists with the cultural experiences they are seeking when visiting the shared tourism region of the Lower North Shore and Labrador while producing tangible economic benefits for the region such as (a) more or better jobs, (b) increased and more targeted investments, (c) increased tourist trade as measured by extended tourist stays and increased tourist spends, and (d) increased tax revenues in the region.

Through CEDEC’s Collaborative Economic Development approach, the Venture identified the need to create and promote living heritage tourism experiences and validated it through the model’s on-the-ground intelligence gathering. The visitor surveys conducted in 2022 at the Lower North Shore’s Blanc-Sablon two visitor information centers revealed that over 40% of respondents were visiting the North Shore to experience/go to museums or other cultural institutions.