Niagara, Traditional Honeymoon Mecca, Takes a Fall

A heart-shaped whirlpool tub in a Niagara Falls hotel room may strike many as romantic, but to those who work here it’s a constant reminder of all that has gone wrong in the world’s honeymoon capital.

About 30 of the city’s 70 motels and hotels are up for sale or in receivership, while tourism is down about 40% since 1989 and unemployment has raced up to 14%--the fourth-highest level in Canada.

“Our industry is dying here,” said Rick Blanchard, manager of Louis Tussaud’s wax museum, a benchmark establishment on Niagara Falls’ Clifton Hill strip of gaudy hotels, aging museums and other amusement park-type attractions.

Blanchard, speaking from his office just down the street from the Houdini Hall of Fame, Guiness Book of World Records Museum and the Honeymoon City Motel, said the one-time-newlywed mecca seems to be losing its loyal following.

“In the past three years business has been radically slower,” he said.

Shopkeepers and city officials here generally concede that the city’s best days are behind them and that big changes are needed to recoup the disappearing crowds.

Mayor Wayne Thomas said the city is launching several aggressive promotional campaigns this year, including one starting on Valentine’s Day, to try to revive the romantic aura that was once Niagara Falls’ hallmark.

“We’re going to put on some special events to make sure the public is aware that Niagara Falls is for honeymooners,” Thomas said in an interview. “That market has been taken for granted in the past few years and we’re going back after it.”

Thomas said the campaign will be Niagara Falls’ largest on record and will cost anywhere from C$2.0 million ($1.6 million) to C$8.0illion ($6.4 million).

“It’s the first time we’ve brought all the major attractions together and pooled their money into meaningful advertising,” he said. “It’s in the finalizing stages now.”

Victor Tomovich, who for the last 15 years has run “The Zodiac,” a computerized horoscope service, said the crowds peaked in the mid-1980s and have been declining steadily since.

“In the fall, we used to have a good honeymoon season, but not any more,” he said. “The newlyweds aren’t as visible as they used to be.” Other shopkeepers say elderly citizens on bus tours now dominate the autumn season.

Families en route between Canada and the United States, dropping into Niagara Falls for the day, are fast becoming the biggest year-round tourists in the area, replacing newlyweds and those drawn in simply by the majesty of the falls.

Blanchard of Louis Tussaud’s estimates that honeymooners now make up only 25 percent of tourists, nearly half the proportion of two decades ago.

Tomovich said many people are not as impressed with the falls as in the past, adding that other exotic tourist sites and countries are now cheaper and posing stiffer competition.

“Niagara is competing with places like South America and Costa Rica. Niagara Falls was one of the wonders of the world, but today people can go to Alaska instead,” he said.

Even the building where his shop is located, the Maple Leaf Village Mall, is in receivership, along with the Maple Leaf Village Amusement Park and the Skyline Brock Hotel, where Marilyn Monroe was filmed in the Hollywood picture “Niagara.”