Thanks, guys!
*****
DewE - I completely understand. It's disproportionately expensive to visit St. John's because flying is the only convenient way to reach the city and Canadian airlines have a monopoly. We have no option to drive across the border for cheaper American airfares, so our prices aren't marked down to the extent they are elsewhere. giallo can fly from Shanghai to Toronto for less than I can usually fly from Toronto to St. John's.
We're also so isolated that we have to be a destination in ourselves. It takes 24 hours to drive/ferry to our nearest neighbour, Halifax, Nova Scotia. You can spend the same amount of money and time to see Dublin, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Paris all in one go. It's hard to compete with that.
Unless you're into icebergs and whales or have some particular appreciation for Newfoundland and its culture, it can be a difficult sell. The city's primary tourism-related goal right now is getting more cruise ships to stop here between Europe and the United States. We recently added Disney Cruise Lines, so that was a big win. This seems to be one of the most effective ways to grow the tourism industry because it makes it affordable, and it makes it part of a larger package. The Disney line, for example, goes from Stockholm to New York City and stops here.
The only thing people sometimes say as a reason for not visiting that I have to correct is when they've visited the Maritimes and believe that counts. "I've never been to St. John's, but I took a road trip to Halifax, I love your region!". We're quite different, geographically and culturally - probably even more so than Boston versus NYC.
Here are a few examples of the sorts of things we get, even in the Maritimes
• Video Link
(Mainlanders, BTW, is our term for anyone from anywhere else in Canada. It does NOT include the population on the mainland of our province, in Labrador. It DOES include other Canadian islands, such as Prince Edward Island and Vancouver Island).