08 Visitor Experience Magazine Makes Big Online Waves

The 2008 Thunder Bay Experience Visitor magazine was launched March 1st to great responses from consumers and industry alike and the demand will continue to climb into the summer leisure market season.

In addition to the 120 000 copies in circulation (a 20% increase over 2007) the guide is also available online at http://www.visitthunderbay.com/. In its first two months posted, it has been downloaded 9234 times. At this pace, it is conceivable that it will be viewed online up to 54 000 times this year. This would be a significant increase over the 31 000 copies downloaded in 2007 of the previous guide.

While high quality select print visitor information is still considered an essential part of our marketing mix, online posting of the guide makes perfect sense in that it delivers greater reach for our advertisor's investments in the guide, reduces postage costs for one-off distribution and helps meet our goals of environmental responsibility.

The Experience magazine is important for attracting new visitors to the community but more importantly, it can help keep existing visitors in the community for a longer stay, thereby increasing economic impacts. While we strive to attract new visitors, the current North American economic climate also has us looking at visitor retention as a means to compensate for any loss, in visitor numbers, from particular markets. Comprehesive information sources are a great way to achieve this goal.