A Year of Resilience: Visitor Experience Plan for Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve

Photo: Brand Canada

We were thrilled for the opportunity to work with Jillian Larkham and Ruth Jacque who are in the process of creating Indigenous visitor experiences for Canada’s newest and 46th National Park Reserve in the Mealy Mountains, Labrador. Jill and Ruth are both passionate about using a community-driven approach to creating the visitor experiences, and despite this challenging year, we had incredible responses and interest from the local community members who contributed their thoughts, ideas, and opinions for tourism development in MMNPR.

The vision for the MMNPR Visitor Experience Plan is to provide and encourage enriching connections with the Labrador Inuit through meaningful travel experiences out on the land. CES’ role in the project involved extensive research, community and stakeholder engagement, and a comprehensive market analysis with a special consideration of Nunatsiavut as a niche market sector. Our recommendations were informed by the research process, but were ultimately rooted in the ideas we heard from the community which laid the foundation for the visitor experience concepts presented in the Plan.

Over a 5-year period this Plan will guide the Nunatsiavut Government through building the foundation for community-based tourism in MMNPR, launching the visitor experiences, and ensuring sustainability into the future in collaboration with their industry partners. This will all be accomplished while putting the community first and empowering the people of Nunatsiavut. We are eager to see how this Plan evolves and works to create sustainable tourism development opportunities in the region!

In addition, we are delighted to be continuing our collaboration with the Nunatsiavut Government by assisting in the development of their Refreshed Tourism Strategy this coming Spring. It is an exciting project that will guide tourism development in the Nunatsiavut region over the next five years. We are grateful to work alongside Jill, who is a dynamic leader, and her dedicated team on this important initiative, and we are looking forward to hearing from the Steering Committee and other community members and partners about what they envision for tourism in their communities!

We would like to acknowledge the Nunatsiavut Government staff, their strategic partners, and Nunatsiavut’s community members, without whom these important projects would not be possible. For more information on tourism initiatives in Nunatsiavut, visit Tourism Nunatsiavut’s website here.