Niagara Falls Cultural Tourism Development

Building on the master plan for Lundy’s Lane Battlefield National Historic site, for which Carl Bray was project manager and heritage planner in a previous consultancy, Carl prepared a landscape master plan for the battlefield which was adopted and has been implemented in phases.

He subsequently was lead consultant and heritage planner for a team of tourism and management consultants, historians, archaeologists and conservators that prepared a Heritage Master Plan for the municipality in which were demonstrated the economic benefits of cultural tourism development as value added to the mass tourism experiences currently on offer. A thematic history identified themes, sub-themes and storylines that could form the basis for tourism product development based on interpretation of cultural heritage resources.

The master plan benefited from contributions made by public agencies and local residents and was a pioneering effort to translate subjective values for place into planning policy and action plan initiatives. The plan was adopted by the City and has since formed the basis for many of that municipality’s cultural tourism projects.