Executive Summary

Nobody currently knows with confidence how many people travel to Labrador, why they come, or what they spend. Newfoundland and Labrador’s tourism statistics are built to count visitors entering the province, not visitors entering Labrador, and travel between the island and Labrador counts as movement within the province. As a result, Labrador’s visitor economy is largely invisible in official figures.

This paper sets out the information needed to build a reliable picture of travel to Labrador, then examines whether Labrador should actively encourage tourism. It concludes that measurement should come first, and that the case for tourism is strongest when it is selective, community-controlled, and fitted to the different conditions of Labrador’s subregions.

Part One: The Measurement Problem

1.1 Why current statistics fall short

The province publishes regular counts of non-resident visitors by air, auto, and cruise. These counts are taken at the provincial boundary. A visitor from Ontario who flies into St. John’s and then on to Goose Bay is counted once, as a visitor to the province, with no record that Labrador was part of the trip. A resident of Corner Brook who flies to Goose Bay is not counted at all, since that trip never leaves the province.

The province’s periodic exit surveys ask non-residents where they went, which in principle could produce Labrador estimates. In practice, Labrador visitors are a small share of a sample designed around the island, so the Labrador results are thin. The province has drawn on some Labrador-specific sources in the past, including Labrador Straits ferry figures and visitor centre counts in Labrador West, but these cover only parts of the region.

1.2 What kinds of travel need to be counted

A full picture requires separating travel into categories, because each has different economic effects and different data sources:

• Non-resident leisure visitors: vacationers, road trippers on the Trans-Labrador Highway, park visitors, hunters and anglers.
• Visiting friends and relatives: former residents returning home, family visits.
• Island residents travelling to Labrador: domestic tourism within the province, currently uncounted.
• Business travel: mining, hydroelectric, construction, consulting, and government work. This is likely the largest single category for Goose Bay and Wabush.
• Military travel: personnel and allied forces training at 5 Wing Goose Bay.
• Expedition cruise passengers: small ships calling at north coast communities and the Torngat Mountains.
• Resident travel within Labrador: coastal residents travelling to Goose Bay for medical care, shopping, and services.
• Transit passengers: travellers passing through Goose Bay or Wabush on multi-stop flights without staying.

1.3 Data sources required

Transportation counts

• Airport passenger data: enplanement and deplanement counts from the Goose Bay Airport Corporation, Wabush, Churchill Falls, Blanc-Sablon, and the north coast airstrips. These must distinguish passengers ending their journey from those connecting through, since multi-stop routings would otherwise cause double counting.
• Airline origin and destination data: ticket-level data from PAL Airlines and Air Borealis showing where trips begin and end, aggregated to protect privacy. Transport Canada and Statistics Canada collect some of this data, but releasing it at the Labrador level would require agreement.
• Road traffic counts: permanent counters on the Trans-Labrador Highway, at the Quebec boundary near Labrador City, and on the road from Blanc-Sablon, with periodic licence-plate province sampling to estimate the share of out-of-province vehicles.
• Ferry records: passenger and vehicle counts on the Strait of Belle Isle ferry and the north coast coastal service, with residence of passengers recorded at booking.
• Cruise itineraries: port calls and passenger counts for expedition ships, available through the cruise association and port records.

Accommodation and activity data

• Roofed accommodation occupancy: the province has reported occupancy by region, including Labrador, in past performance reports. Extending this to guest origin and trip purpose would greatly sharpen the picture.
• Campground and lodge data: provincial park counts and records from outfitters and fishing and hunting lodges.
• Parks Canada visitation: counts at Torngat Mountains National Park, the Mealy Mountains, Red Bay, and Hopedale Mission. Visitation at the Torngats is very small: fewer than 600 people visit the park each year.
• Non-resident hunting and fishing licences: a direct count of one important visitor segment.
• Visitor information centre logs with origin recorded.

Spending and behaviour data

• Aggregated payment card data: anonymized spending by cardholder origin in Labrador communities, purchasable from payment processors.
• Anonymized mobile device data: aggregated counts of devices registered outside the region, showing visitor volume, length of stay, and movement between communities.
• Business surveys: periodic surveys of hotels, restaurants, outfitters, and retailers on the share of revenue from visitors.

A Labrador-specific visitor survey
The most important addition would be an intercept survey conducted at Labrador’s own gateways: the Goose Bay and Wabush airports, the Strait of Belle Isle ferry, and the Quebec road boundary. Running in both summer and winter, it would record residence, trip purpose, length of stay, communities visited, and spending. This is the only practical way to separate business, leisure, and family travel with confidence.

1.4 Method: triangulation

No single source will be complete. A sound estimate would combine them:

1. Transportation counts establish total trip volume.
2. The intercept survey divides that volume by purpose and origin.
3. Accommodation, licence, and park data check the survey results against independent counts.
4. Spending data and business surveys estimate economic impact.

The result could be organized as a Labrador visitor account, published annually, showing visitor numbers, purpose, length of stay, and spending by subregion.

1.5 Who would gather the information

Responsibility is currently scattered among the provincial tourism department, airport authorities, Parks Canada, Destination Labrador, and Indigenous governments. A coordinating body is needed. If a Labrador regional government were established, measurement could be one of its first functions. Short of that, a partnership led by the province’s tourism department with Labrador’s airport authorities, Destination Labrador, Nunatsiavut, and the Innu Nation could share costs and data. Indigenous governments should control how data about travel to their communities and lands is collected and used.

1.6 Estimated effort

A basic program built on airport, ferry, road, and accommodation data, plus one year-long intercept survey, would be modest in cost by government standards. Payment and mobile data purchases would add expense but greatly improve accuracy. A practical sequence would be one baseline year, followed by a repeat survey every three to five years with annual updates from the continuous counts.

Part Two: Should Labrador Encourage Tourism?

2.1 The case for tourism

Economic diversification. Labrador’s economy rises and falls with mining, hydro construction, and defence spending. Tourism, though small, responds to different cycles and can steady local incomes.

Support for the air network. Labrador’s air service depends on filling seats across multi-stop routes. Additional visitors, especially in shoulder seasons, improve load factors on the same flights residents rely on. Higher traffic could strengthen the case for more frequency and, over time, for lower fares.

Indigenous enterprise. Some of Labrador’s strongest tourism products are Indigenous-owned. The Torngat Mountains Base Camp and Research Station is Inuit-owned and managed, showing that tourism can deliver income directly to communities with few other options.

Cultural continuity and recognition. Visitor interest in Inuit and Innu culture, Basque whaling history at Red Bay, and Moravian mission sites can support the preservation of languages, crafts, and historic places, and can increase outside understanding of Labrador.

Public amenity. Facilities built for visitors, such as trails, interpretive centres, and restaurants, also serve residents.

2.2 The case for caution

Limited capacity. Hotels, rental vehicles, guides, and restaurants are few. In peak months, business travellers already fill much of this capacity, and visitor growth could raise prices for everyone.

Housing pressure. Labrador faces housing shortages. If homes are converted to short-term rentals for visitors, residents and workers lose access to housing.

Competition for scarce seats. On some routes, especially to the north coast, aircraft capacity is very limited. Seats sold to visitors in peak season can be seats residents cannot get for medical or family travel.

Strain on emergency services. Search and rescue coverage and health facilities are already stretched over enormous distances. Adventure tourism in remote areas, including areas where polar bears are present, raises the risk of incidents that draw on these thin resources.

Cultural and environmental sensitivity. Visitor traffic to small Indigenous communities, burial sites, and hunting areas must be managed with community consent. Uncontrolled visitation can damage both places and relationships.

Economic leakage. If outside operators run tours, own lodges, and bring their own staff, much of the spending leaves the region.

Seasonality. A short summer season produces seasonal jobs that may not support year-round livelihoods.

2.3 Different answers for different subregions

Labrador is not a single destination, and the case for tourism varies:

• Labrador Straits and the south coast: road-connected to Quebec and linked to the island by ferry, with Red Bay as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tourism is already established here, and growth is most feasible.
• Upper Lake Melville: the transportation hub, with services, accommodation, and access to the coast and interior. Best suited as a base for trips elsewhere and for combining business travel with short leisure extensions.
• Labrador West: a mining economy with business travel dominating hotel demand. Leisure tourism, such as winter sports and road trips via Quebec, is possible but secondary.
• The north coast and the Torngats: the most distinctive and the most fragile. Decisions here belong first to the Nunatsiavut Government and the communities, many of which may prefer small numbers of high-value visitors on community terms.

2.4 A balanced approach

The evidence favours selective, community-led tourism rather than volume growth:

1. Measure before marketing. Promotion without a baseline makes it impossible to tell whether tourism is helping or straining communities.
2. Favour low-volume, high-value travel. Guided cultural, wilderness, and heritage trips spend more per visitor and place less strain on capacity than mass tourism.
3. Target shoulder seasons. Visitors in late spring and early fall fill seats and rooms without competing with peak business demand.
4. Prioritize local and Indigenous ownership. Licensing, procurement, and grant programs can favour operators based in Labrador.
5. Protect resident access. Air and ferry capacity rules should preserve seats for residents, especially for medical and essential travel.
6. Guard housing. Communities should have authority to limit short-term rentals where housing is scarce.
7. Let communities decide. Indigenous governments and towns should be able to welcome, limit, or decline tourism in their areas, with outside agencies supporting rather than directing those decisions.

Conclusion

Labrador cannot plan for visitors it cannot see. The first task is to build a measurement system that counts travel to Labrador itself, separates its many purposes, and tracks its economic effects. Once that baseline exists, the question of tourism can be answered with evidence rather than impression. The likely answer is that Labrador should support tourism, but on its own terms: modest in scale, owned locally wherever possible, timed to use spare capacity, and governed by the communities who will live with its effects long after visitors have flown home.

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Sources:

• NL Tourism Department: data sources background
• NL 2016 Exit Survey Highlights
• NL 2016 Annual Tourism Performance Report
• National Geographic: Torngat Mountains
• Parks Canada: Red Bay National Historic Site