Let’s talk about the “3 million tourists a year” number and what Destination Niagara actually means for Niagara-on-the-Lake.

You often hear that Niagara-on-the-Lake welcomes approximately 3 to 3.5 million visitors every year.

The important word is approximately.

There is no turnstile at the entrance to Niagara-on-the-Lake and there is no single system physically counting every person who enters our municipality.

The Town itself currently says NOTL welcomes more than 3.5 million visitors annually, while other government sources have historically used “more than 3 million.”

These figures should therefore be understood as tourism estimates, not a literal count of 3.5 million individual people entering Town.

In fact, one of the things Tourism Niagara-on-the-Lake is working on is improving our data.

At its 2026 presentation to Council, Tourism NOTL acknowledged the long-standing uncertainty around visitation numbers and discussed using tools such as mobile-location data and geotagging to better understand visitor movement, demographics and how long people actually stay.

That distinction matters when we start talking about the Province’s Destination Niagara Strategy.

Destination Niagara is about the Niagara Region not doubling tourism specifically in NOTL.

The Province currently estimates that the entire Niagara Region receives more than 13 million visitors annually.

Its Destination Niagara Strategy identifies the potential to grow that to approximately 25 million visitors annually, while doubling tourism’s economic impact.

It also specifically calls for increasing year-round visitation and increasing the average length of stay from approximately 1–2 days to 3–4 days.

That does not mean Niagara-on-the-Lake has been given a target of doubling our approximately 3.5 million visitors to 7 million.

That distinction is extremely important.

Naturally, residents ask:

If tourism grows, how will our roads, parking, water, wastewater, stormwater systems and other infrastructure support it?

That is exactly the kind of question we should be asking.

But there is another part of the tourism conversation that often gets missed: when people visit and how long they stay.

Tourism in Niagara has historically been highly seasonal.

Earlier Niagara Parks data, for example, found that more than 70% of travel to Niagara occurred during the warmer months from May through September.

Today, Tourism NOTL is specifically working on growing shoulder-season demand, year-round visitation and overnight stays.

So destination planning isn’t simply about putting more people onto Queen Street on an already busy Saturday in July.

One objective is to better distribute tourism throughout the 12 months of the year, bringing economic activity into the quieter months when many of our businesses need it most.

Another objective is attracting visitors who stay longer.

There is a very practical economic reason for that.

A day visitor can drive into Niagara-on-the-Lake, walk around, take pictures and leave having spent very little.

An overnight visitor needs somewhere to sleep. They are more likely to eat multiple meals, visit attractions, shop, attend theatre, tour wineries and experience other parts of our community.

That doesn’t mean we don’t want day visitors.

It means we need a better balance.

Our own official Destination Marketing Organization describes its mandate as attracting “high-yield, low-impact, multi-day, year-round visitors.” (Niagara-on-the-Lake)

And importantly, Destination Niagara is a Provincial strategy.

It is not Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Tourism Strategy.

Niagara-on-the-Lake has its own Tourism Strategy and Action Plan.

Council approved it in 2025 as the local framework for tourism development, including implementation, measurement, infrastructure, resident needs and the economic, social and environmental impacts of tourism.

That is where our local voice matters.

And there is a much bigger picture we cannot lose sight of.

Earlier this year, Niagara-on-the-Lake formally opposed forced municipal amalgamation and advocated for maintaining our municipal independence and local decision-making authority.

The governance changes subsequently enacted by the Province for the 2026 term changed council composition, but Niagara Region confirms that those changes do not amalgamate or dissolve Niagara’s municipalities.

Why does that matter in a conversation about tourism?

Because local decision-making matters.

We can spend all of our time debating one hotel, one tourism announcement, one development or one Provincial initiative but we have to continue looking at the whole picture.

I’ve been scrutinized for photographs I’ve taken with Provincial leaders.

What very few people have asked me is:

“What do those conversations actually look like?”

My conversations have consistently focused on Niagara-on-the-Lake’s interests:

protecting our local voice, ensuring our own tourism strategy is implemented in a way that balances the visitor economy with residents’ quality of life, and making sure decisions affecting this community include the people with boots on the ground here in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

That includes our residents.

And it absolutely includes our local business community.

Many of our business owners have operated in Niagara-on-the-Lake for more than three decades.

They understand what it means to earn enough during busy months to carry a business through the winter while continuing to pay rent, property taxes, utilities and employees during months when significantly fewer people are walking through their doors.

They interact directly with residents and visitors every single day.

They know what visitors ask for.

They know where the pressures are.

They know what works and what doesn’t.

And long before there were Provincial tourism strategies, municipal accommodation taxes or major government tourism programs, local entrepreneurs, wineries, restaurants, accommodations, retailers, attractions and organizations were working together to build Niagara-on-the-Lake into the internationally recognized destination it is today.

Those are voices that deserve to be at the table.

And those are voices I bring with me when I am at that table.

Tourism, infrastructure, development, governance, agriculture, heritage, our local economy and residents’ quality of life cannot be discussed as though they exist independently of one another.

They are interconnected.

Good decision-making requires us to look at the full picture and give the full picture our attention.

Having a voice at the table is very important.