Staycation success: How the pandemic helped tourists discover Lumsden Beach
Something unusual started happening in Lumsden over the summer of 2020, a few months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
People started showing up in the small town on Newfoundland's northeast coast. First it was just a handful of vehicles coming from out of town to spend the day. Then a few more … and a few more. By the summer of 2021, hundreds of people were descending on the quiet community on warm, sunny days.
"There's days when it can be upwards to 300, 400 vehicles parked at the beach," town manager Jeanie Stokes told CBC News in a recent interview. "I mean, there's only like 500 people in Lumsden."
For people in the know, Lumsden's white sandy beaches were always a summer favourite but the push for staycations over the past few years may have enticed more people to explore the province. After someone posted about the beach on a popular Facebook page devoted to N.L. staycations, Stokes said, things exploded and there were days when the crowd doubled and even tripled the town's population.
However the unexpected tourism boom has proved to be a doubled edged sword for the small town.
All of a sudden there were issues with a lack of parking, garbage cans and public washrooms. Stokes said it was overwhelming.
"Back in 2020, we really didn't know how to handle it because it came on us by surprise," Stokes said.
This summer, however, the town feels prepared to accommodate that many people again. It's added more garbage cans along the beach and it's putting in a new parking lot. It's also constructed a new building on the beach with public washrooms and a kitchen space leased by new local business Lumsden Beach Company.
Owner Rayann Crane, who's originally from Lumsden, said she had been mulling over the business idea for a while but a visit there herself in 2020 gave her the push to make it happen. She said visitors would ask where they could get something to eat and she'd have to send them out of town.
"It just killed us because we had the idea but there was no infrastructure and I wondered, 'Will this opportunity happen again?'"
Eager to strike while the iron was hot, Crane launched her company that fall. Now Lumsden Beach Company rents RVs on the beach, runs a hotdog cart, sells clothing and rents kayaks, and Stokes plans to open a café in the town's new building.
Between the business community and the way the town has stepped up, said Crane, tourists will have an even better experience visiting Lumsden. The goal, she said, is that they not only come back and stay longer, but spend some money in the town while they're there.
With files from CBC Newfoundland Morning
