Thunder Bay Tourism Partners

Valhalla Inn-Door Golf Open In its Second Year of Supporting the Community

2012-02-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

In addition to being a great place to stay or host a conference event, The Valhalla Inn has always had a great reputation for its commitment to the community. So its no surprise that they're once again hosting the Valhalla Inn-Door Golf Open on Friday April 27th in support of the United Way of Thunder Bay.

This is the second year of the event and its a great way to have some fun, raise some money for a great local organization. The best part is that the weather is always perfect. It might be hard to image but think of a colossal mini putt course stretched through most of the main floor of the hotel. From the ball rooms, meeting rooms, halls, lobby and even the pool area (think massive water trap). The cool thing is that the course sponsors design their own holes and its pretty amazing to see the creative lengths they go to.

In 2011, Tourism Thunder Bay partnered with Golf Thunder Bay to host a hole and even field a team. Its a great way to boost our network within the community. The event raised over $12 800 and 100% of the proceeds went to the United Way.

I encourage other community tourism partners to consider sponsoring a hole, prizes or fielding a team for this event. For our corporate visitors in the city that week, why not stay over an extra night and hang out with the locals on the course. Space is limited to 36 teams.

To register, click here. For more information contact Bill Dell, Sales and Marketing Director @ bill.dell@valhallainn.com

"Unconventional Convention" Campaign Takes Off.

2012-02-08T20:11:00.000-08:00

Our "Unconventional Convention" strategy is generating some positive attention from our friends at Northern Ontario Business.

The February issue features a number of articles on Thunder Bay's corporate partners, Lake Superior Visits and Sailsuperior. There is also a robust article on our new strategy developed in 2011 that aligns with our overall vision to be positioned as Canada's Best Outdoor City and distinguish ourselves from other municipal convention destinations. Where most people are zigging, we decided to zag. We've focused on the details that create inspired meetings and conferences. Things like the food, the pre and post activities and the unique off site, corporate retreat and break out options. The convention business is hugely competitive between cities across Ontario and we felt it important to break the mold a little, have a little fun and get planners thinking about how they great they'll look when they've delivered a successful and unique event. We've also looked beyond our traditional municipal boundaries to include unique corporate retreat experiences in Nipigon and Red Rock.

Our 2011 Meeting and Convention Planner has all the conference planner info at ones fingertips-from room capacities, hotel room inventory, unique locations and the like but kicks it up a few notches to showcase the culinary masterminds of the convention hotels, unique off site and team building experiences and things to do while waiting to fly home. What do you remember from a conference? Was it the great food? The team building sailing or kayak tour or just catching a great local band in a club at the end of the day? Most people don't remember what the meeting room looked like.

The strategy draws heavily on our biggest asset. Air connectivity. With Westjet, Air Canada, Porter, Bearskin and Wasaya serving the city, we're becoming top of mind for provincial and national meeting planners. Easy to get to, affordable hotel rates and all the services available in larger centres opens a lot of eyes in the conference planners world.

In 2011, we began an in flight marketing campaign with all five national and regional airlines to speak directly to the corporate audience. Lets face it. Everyone reads the in flight magazine when flying. They flip through it, read it backwards and memorize the ads. The strategy also included a refreshed and inspiring trade show expo and participation in some of Ontario and Canada's top convention planner shows. We even had a lot of fun coordinating the cover shoot last summer at the newly opened Prince Arthur's Landing where we staged an outdoor meeting at the end of pier 2 on a clear July night with sailboats cruising around in the background.

An important element of the convention strategy is to improve the cross pollination between our corporate and leisure segments. Encouraging business travellers to explore our restaurant and live music scene, integrate a visit to the art gallery or hit the slopes increases yield and improves the overall economic contribution of the tourism industry. It also makes business travellers enjoy their time more and perhaps they'll return with family on vacation.

The plan also focuses on a number of best bet segments within the corporate travel market that have a logical reason to do business in Thunder Bay. Mining, health sciences, government, NGO, education and First Nations groups are all important to our municipal corporate travel market and contribute significantly to our overall annual tourism economy.

The strategy is already delivering more bid inquiries through our office and more interest in both the online site and printed convention planner. From the industry performance side, increased airport usage and hotel occupancy rates in 2011 support the notion of increased business travel to the city.

If you're a convention planner looking for something different, contact our Conference Planner, Rose Marie Tarnowski at rtarnowski@thunderbay.ca

Ride Lake Superior Hits the Road Running

2012-02-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

Motorcycle touring continues to grow in popularity and the Lake Superior circle tour has the potential to be branded as North America's premier riding destination.

In 2011, "Ride Lake Superior" was born out of a series of motorcycle tourism readiness workshops held in Thunder Bay, Sault Ste Marie and later in the year, Calumet Michigan. These sessions, developed and delivered by Chris Hughes of BC Hughes Tourism Consulting, brought together tourism industry partners to learn more about the growth of this tourism segment, their needs and how to capture more of them in our establishment. What came quickly out of the workshops was a cool branding exercise, lots of enthusiasm and almost every major tourism partner around the lake collecting data on their motorcycle friendly partners.

The touring market is perhaps the single best new method to attract leisure visitors to our festivals, events and attractions. In the past we've always lead with singular attractions and events in isolation of each other with, admittedly, very limited success. the reality is that many leisure travellers like a linear route with spectacular scenery. They like to explore and they like to keep exploring. The highway corridor forms the spine of the route. The attractions, events and culinary wonders combine to bring that route to life and expand the value to the consumer. Its a better way to promote a wider range of our attractions.

This past weekend, partners from various points around the lake converged at the Minneapolis Motorcycle Show to promote "Ride Lake Superior" to Minnesota's massive avid motorcycle base. There are over 230 000 registers bikes in the state and over 400 000 licenced riders. Over twenty thousand of these folks stormed through the gates for the three day show, with the Lake Superior route proved to be the only destination being marketed at a show where virtually every motorcycle manufacturer and aftermarket shop was out in full force

We've had twenty thousand of Lake Superior magazine's pocket maps specially printed with the Ride Lake Superior information and over five thousand were distributed at the show along with information from communities and regions around the lake. Being able to capture the attention of up to twenty percent of show attendees was impressive and speaks to the hunger in the US Midwest for the "Big Lake"

We had inquiries from hotel chains, motorcycle media and organized clubs all weekend long. This is a new trend in group travel as well as bikers typically travel in a pack. We heard from numerous folks that they planned on group rides of six to twenty bikes. Just imagine that every day during motorcycle season, as few as twenty five new riders enter the touring route for a five to seven day tour. That's over thirty seven hundred new visitors to the lake basin annually, pumping over $5.8 million into the regional economy. This is exactly why a regional approach to leisure tourism is so essential to growing the industry. We have to work together to make the pie bigger and we aren't going to do it in isolation from one another.

The call to action for this campaign is RideLakeSuperior.com, the web portal that consumers register with to create their own custom itineraries and receive updates on the growing number of motorcycle friendly attractions, restaurants and hotels around the lake. These are the places with towels in their rooms to wipe down bikes, discounts for riders or group rides, covered or secure parking for bikes, organized biker events and more. Basically, the little things that make bikers feel welcome when they travel.

This is only the beginning. The campaign aims to grow into the future to include more consumer shows in key Canadian and US motorcycle markets, digital, social and print media support, travel Media familiarization tours and more. Its an exciting time for Lake Superior, for regional thinking in tourism and the power of partnerships focused on one goal. Growing the industry.

If you want more information on this or want to get involved, visit RideLakeSuperior.com.

Marketing some of the Best Fresh Water Boating in North America

2012-01-15T15:42:00.000-08:00

Water is our most important tourism asset. Weather its trophy angling, canoeing, kayaking, sailing or waterfall viewing, its connected to many of North America's most beloved travel experiences.

We happen to have a lot of it around us, pretty special considering we're in the middle of the continent. Investing in the promotion of freshwater based experiences is a big part of our tourism strategy. Waterfront redevelopment investments by the City of Thunder Bay create improved connectivity for residents and visitors to the Big Lake. Just look around Lake Superior and you'll notice almost every community has or is making capital investments in their waterfronts to capture more visitors and create greater local recreational opportunities. The Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area is a catalyst investment that all communities along its route need to be engaged in.

We've been a big supporter of the North of Superior Marina Marketing Association over the past number of years, working in a regional partnership to attract more Canadian and American boaters to this, one of the most road accessible wilderness boating regions anywhere.

In 2011, we worked with the group to bring in Power Boat Television for a week to tape an episode on cruising the North Shore of Superior. A print article based on the taping made its way into the October 2011 Boats and Places magazine and the episode is set to air later this month on Power Boat Television on the Outdoor Life Network. During the taping I was fortunate enough to give the hosts an overview of the works being undertaken at Prince Arthur's Landing. Needless to say,they were suitable impressed with the enhancements and it will be featured in their upcoming episode. One scene involving a unexpected guest swimming out to join the crew aboard is particularly entertaining and reminds us just how exotic our region is to others and we should be promoting it to avid adventure travellers accordingly.

We also partner with the association every year at the Minneapolis Boat Show, a major boating and water sport show that attracts close to forty thousand folks. Being one of only a few Canadian booths and one of the few destination promoters means we're pretty popular, speaking with over twelve hundred avid and dedicated boaters each year, doing presentations for Minnesota based boating and yacht clubs and getting a sense of the economic demographics of the region. In addition to the boating information, we also distribute hundred of Thunder Bay visitor magazines, thousands of maps, and other relevant information for the folks coming through the doors.

While the number of boats that arrive in the city by water is relatively modest - approximately one hundred or so annually - they typically stay an average of three nights in our port. Furthermore, many, many more boaters arrive by highway, towing small to medium sized day and overnight vessels to explore the archipelago. With over eight hundred thousand boats registered in Minnesota and another six hundred thousand in Wisconsin, these are large close haul source markets to tap into. While the vast majority are the sub twenty foot fishing craft, they're easily and avoidably towed here. These smaller trailer boaters stay in local hotels, stock up on groceries, dine locally and pay launch fees, adding to the local and regional tourism economy in important ways.

We're excited this year to be able to announce at the show that Prince Arthur's Landing's marina improvements within Phase 1 are complete and we're able to accommodate the return of the trailer boat market and attract more of the "sail in" market for a full operating season once again at that location. While its important to market the experiences of the community and region, its critical to have high quality experiences and amenities to promote. That's why capital investments in redevelopment like Prince Arthur's Landing are so critical. Investments being made in Nipigon, Red Rock, Terrace Bay and other coastal communities will only make the visitor experience more enriching. Personally, I'm excited to share the news with the domestic and Minnesota boating communities and seeing their impressions of the enhancements undertaken.

This year, we're also fortunate to have a partnership with Canada Border Services Agency who are providing two of their staff at the show booth with us to help US residents understand immigration and customs processes coming into Canada. Having accurate information, particularly for some who's never travelled before or who have concerns about their own backgrounds is critical to helping ease the movement of visitors across the border. The management and staff at CBSA here in Thunder Bay are great to work with and understand their important role in helping grow our tourism industry while performing a very important and sometimes under appreciated border security role.

The show is also a good weekend to meet with our U.S. counterparts to share best practices, work on some new bi-national initiatives and get a pulse on the U.S. economy.

Check out lakesuperiorboating.com for more information on boating the North Shore.

New Motorcycle Touring Trip Planner Featured on Motorcycle.com

2012-01-12T20:03:00.000-08:00

Keeping on the motorcycle touring theme I started earlier this week, I've got something new to add to the discussion in the way of a great new trip planner and some pretty respected attention its getting across North America.

For the past few years, Tourism Thunder Bay has been the administrative partner on an incredible trip planning tool developed and rolled out that will revolutionize how the growing motorcycle touring segment plans and executes their trip. The North shore of Lake Superior, linking Thunder Bay to Sault Ste Marie was one of the routes piloted in the launch of this tool.

This whole initiative has been lead by Ontario Tourism Partnership Corporation with financial support from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and Fednor and began a number of years ago to identify technical solutions to make online trip planning easier for the motor sport touring segments and easy for industry to populate their own information as they relate to those segments. It was envisioned that this tool could load and transmit the information though GPS units and smart phones, an essential travel tool these days for the RV, motorcycle and auto sport touring enthusiast.

OTMPC created the GoRideOntario website specifically to target the North American riding demographic and backing it up with a pretty significant tactical campaign, supporting some RTO driven initiatives as well.

E Solutions Group was our successful technical partner, first identifying the right technical solution and later developing the platform for which this would work. another big player in this has been the team of Peter and Micheal Jacobs, an avid father/son team of motorcycle enthusiasts who spent forty days last summer on an epic northern road trip, mapping and cataloguing the routes and attractions across all of Ontario. They facebooked and twittered their way across the Province and I had the pleasure of spending some time with them last summer sailing with Sail Superior, dining on some massive beef bones at the Prospector and of course, the Hoito pancake breakfast to see them off on their next trip with full stomachs. Peter and Micheal are masters of social media and have created a youtube video explaining the tour planner.

The project's pilot routes were developed - Lake Superior and Lake Temiskaming -because of their topography and suitability to the riding segment. After a lot of work, the platform was launched to much fanfare at the 2011 Ontario Tourism Summit held last fall in Hamilton and has drawn interest not only from the Ontario tourism industry but from south of the border as well.

It must be a pretty evolutionary trip planning tool because today, it was featured on Motorcycle.com, one of North America's premier motorcycle enthusiast's media channels. Have a look at it right here!

This is a celebratory culmination of the many years of work put in by a lot of partners and Tourism Thunder Bay has been thrilled to be a part of it. A big thanks to John Cameron, our acting Development Officer, who has been knee deep in this project with incredible enthusiasm. Its another example of how partnerships across a region can leverage resources to get great things accomplished for the tourism community.

Thunder Bay International Airport Has A Recond Year

2012-01-11T14:05:00.001-08:00

Thunder Bay International Airport continues to attract new users and has recently announced that 2011 was a record year with over 719 500 users through the doors, a 4% increase over 2010.

There is no doubt that the airport is an asset our community and regional tourism industry is fortunate to have and is unrivalled across Northern Ontario in terms of air connectivity from major Canadian markets. Having Porter and Air Canada increase their daily seat capacity in the past year, the continued connectivity of Westjet to western and eastern markets and strong regional presence of Bearskin and Wasaya provides travel options not only for the outbound resident but greater inbound options essential to attracting successful conference and sport tourism bids. Its also an asset that is valuable in attracting longer haul leisure markets seeking their epic touring or angling adventure in the region. The city has an important role to play as a gateway to those experiences beyond the city lights. Car rental, accommodation and culinary partners all can benefit as a result.

The installation of a third loading bridge in late 2011, improvements to their parking lots, new private sector investments such as the Pilatus Centre and the massive solar park that will provide renewable energy to the facility are all examples of the Airport Authority growing and innovating to meet changes in the travel industry. The fact that its also continued to resist the charging of "airport improvement fees" is another feather in their cap.

Congrats on a record year and here's anticipating even more growth ahead.

"Ride Lake Superior" Promises New Opportunities for the Motorcycle Visitor

2012-01-10T18:10:00.000-08:00

Back in the spring of 2011, before I departed on my temporary new assignment, I was working alongside several other partners on the "Ride Lake Superior" project that was equal part capacity building, and consumer marketing strategy.

I should admit right off the bat that I'm not a rider....yet. I probably need to address my attention deficit disorder first. I did ride a few times as a teenager on old Honda 450 Nighthawk and I've been collecting gear for a few years now...hiding it from my wife. My goal in 2012 is to learn to ride and finally get a bike, probably a KLR 650. My story is no different than thousands of other 40 somethings right now.

Motorcycle touring is an area of tourism that has shown incremental growth over the past few years and promises to be one segment that will continue to be a more important element of our diversified strategy. Thunder Bay's growth in US traffic at a time when regional US fishing traffic is in decline, is attributed to this touring segment. The demographic is perfect with the average new rider being 45 years of age, with above average income. The motorcycle touring rider is an avid tourist, interested in a unique experience.

Lake Superior's circle tour route is already an incredible thirteen hundred mile (two thousand kilometer) ribbon of highway around the world's largest freshwater lake. Its this very route, changing scenery and authentic communities that will make it one of North America's epic motorcycle riding destinations.

Last year, Tourism Thunder Bay partnererd with Algoma Kinnewabi Travel Association through a new RTO collaborative partnership to begin the journey of meeting this vision. We retained the brilliance of Chris Hughes of BC Hughes consulting to develop and deliver a series of motorcycle visitor readiness workshops ion Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie. The workshop, open to accommodation, attraction, event and other tourism operators provided an overview of the growth within this visitor segment and more importantly, the nuances of welcoming motorcycle culture into one's establishment and community.

Motorcyclists ride all day, stopping frequently to stretch, eat, take pictures, take in road side attractions. At night they want restaurants close to their accommodation and a comfortable nights sleep. They appreciate little details like towels in their rooms to wipe down bikes at the end of the day, concrete parking pads to keep their kickstands from digging into gravel or hot pavement, some prefer to park under canopies, in a secure area or under the watchful eye of video camera. They like to know where to find parts and service in a community and they like to be made to feel welcome with dedicated parking areas and even free on street parking.

Over twenty three local hoteliers and attractions operators attended the Thunder Bay workshop and went through the self assessment process to be declared motorcycle market ready. On the heals of this workshop, we hosted Peter and Micheal Jacobs on their forty day epic Northern Ontario Ultimate Road trip sponsored by OTMPC's motor sport touring folks. They blogged, Facebooked and twittered their way into the minds of avid riders across North America. Its important that the industry realizes just how supportive and dedicated the Ministry of Tourism is about growing this segment. Just check out gorideontario.com and you'll see what I mean.

Thunder Bay also played host to the 2011 Ontario Harley Owners Rally. If eight hundred participants and one half million dollars in economic impact don't support the positive impacts of motorcycle tourism, I'm not sure what does.

Skip to October 2011 when we were invited to Calumet in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to meet with U.S. tourism professionals also passionate about growing the motorcycle market on the U.S. side. The meeting was nothing short of amazing, with unanimous support to work together moving forward to eventually create a true bi-national partnership. Its one of the first times in my fifteen year tourism career that we had this kind of dialogue...and the drive down and back was spectacular.

This meeting and desire to work closer together was important on two fronts. The motorcyclist doesn't just visit a single community as their destination. They prefer a linear route with good quality ribbon of asphalt, linking many sights and experiences together. It imparitive to take a regional approach, working together to meet the demands of the visitor, leverage each other's resources to make a bigger impact that ultimitely benefits every community.

The second part is simply that Lake Superior is just plain awesome. If you're in the tourism industry anywhere around the lake and haven't driven the entire circumference, take a week and do it. The lake is our most important tourism asset for all of us within the basin. Great work has been done to promote the circle tour, notably through the exceptional work of Lake Superior Magazine, and the tourism industry and communities, by working together, can take this to a whole new level of international awareness that will bring new economic benefits to everyone. Its exciting times and working together on motorcycle touring is one catalyst to help grow new partnerships.

We've recently received RTO funding for the 2011 and 2012 marketing years and have once again, invested significantly in taking "Ride Lake Superior" to the next level. We'll be extending outreach to engage more partners, host more educational forums for industry and target new consumers through a series of digital, print and consumer show channels. We've retained BC Hughes to coordinate the second phase of the project through the development of a web portal, continuing education, branding and marketing. The new trade show display was launched in December at the Toronto International Motorcycle Show, was featured at the Toronto Motorcycle Supershow last weekend and will be featured at the Progressive Minneapolis Motorcycle Show February 3-5, 2012.

It is exciting times for the growth of motorcycle tourism and touring in general for our region. Let's keep on rolling.

Victoria Inn Invests in its Meeting and Convention Capacity

2012-01-09T14:41:00.001-08:00

Thunder Bay has enjoyed some of Ontario's highest hotel occupancy rates over the past year due to growth across a number of segments. The convention and meeting segment, in particular, has grown significantly as the city solidifies its place as the "Unconventional Convention" destination, attracting more local, regional and provincial corporate events.

The Victoria Inn is making some changes to meet the growing demands of Thunder Bay's red hot conference market. The former Scuttlebutt's Grill and Bar space within the hotel has closed after fifteen great years and the space formerly occupied by that iconic watering hole is being transformed into new meeting and convention space. Situated adjacent to the Hotel's existing flexible space ballroom, the new renovation will connect with sliding panels to create a ball room capable of hosting up to seven hundred and fifty persons.

According to Ray Nadeau, General Manager of the Victoria Inn, the new space should be available for booking sometime in April 2012. This transformation follows a series of previous investments the hotel has made in the past several years that include renovated guest rooms and improvements to increase their environmental sustainability, making them a leader in urban sustainable tourism.

This is an encouraging sign within the community's tourism industry to see this capital reinvestment to capture growth within the meeting and convention market. The city's corporate market is a significant contributor to the city's overall tourism economy and is important to ensuring we maintain a successful four season tourism. The corporate and conference market traditionally drives late fall, winter and early spring occupancy in the city in a big way along with seasonal sport tourism events.

They way I see this is that offering more choice in meeting space will open up new opportunities that extend the benefits beyond the host hotel. Larger conferences often rely on multiple properties working together to accommodate delegates and this investment is certain to create potential new accommodation business for the five properties along the Arthur St strip. This will also have the potential to increase opportunities in the airline, rental car and culinary segments.

Congrats to Ray and the Victoria Inn for making this investment into the meeting and convention segment.

Some New Year's Resolutions for Tourism Partners

2012-01-08T17:47:00.000-08:00

It is a week or so into the new year but certainly not too late to still make New Year's resolutions. I've made a few professional and personal ones over the holidays to start out the new year with some new fire in my soul. On the personal side, I've been watching my diet, watching the number of lattes I buy each week and hitting the gym with a little more regularity. Professionally, I've been absorbing a lot of new information on reinventing myself, managing in changing times, learning new efficiencies to tackle my growing portfolio and vowing to make more time to reach out to my partners.

There's a number of resolutions everyone in the tourism industry should be considering too. They're all pretty universal and I suggest them as a way to create a road map for the coming year. I like "road map" rather than "blueprint" because along they way, you may find a scenic detour worth or needing consideration that gets you to where you still ultimately want to be.

You should start the year with a fresh mind. Take a look at 2011 and think about what went really well and what didn't. Don't dwell on the business decisions that came up short on expectations but reflect on them and the changes you'll make. Was it a campaign that fizzled, a sudden demographic change in your clientele that caught you off guard or a pesky HR issue you struggled to address constructively? Failures and shortcomings are a part of business everyday. Learning from them makes the successes sweeter.

Get to know your Customer a Little better. Whether its the loyal customer coming back every year or understanding the new consumer needs, get to know what they want, their values, their budgets, their vacation habits, where they live and what they do, how they seek a new experience and what keeps them loyal to you. Spend time with your existing clients to build relationships that translate into improved loyalty. Chat with them, get to understand what they love about your business, what suggestions or comments they have for you and their back grounds. It could be as simple as sending your client a birthday card but they'll be more likely to remember you when booking their future trip.

Get to know your ROI. Return on Investment. Whether its capital improvements to your attraction or property to improve yield or your marketing strategy, it's critical to understand how its driving new business and new revenue to you. A big mistake that a lot of businesses make is not knowing how to invest their marketing budget to reach their client most effectively. The old "spray and pray" tactic of hitting as broad a generic audience as possible doesn't work anymore. Its a crowded advertising marketplace and there are a lot of other competing for your client. This is the next extension of getting to know your client base and selecting the media channels that to speak to them more directly.

The critical element of understanding the return on this investment can come in many forms and is pretty easy to do. Track web referrals to your site. (and if you say you don't have a website, put the "for sale" sign up now.) Ask your leads and eventual clients where they discovered you and analyse the financial foot print they leave with you. From there, you'll have a better idea of what media to ditch and what media to expand.

Start Building Partnerships. Your competition isn't the lodge or attraction across the street. Its one of the thousands of jurisdictions around the globe on line competing for your guest. Its critical to present the community and region in a unified plan to maximize reach and its critical for individual tourism partners to cross promote one another. Creating partnerships, creating mutual understanding of one another's contribution to the city and regional tourism economy provides more opportunities for visitors to explore and stay longer. Its an opportunity for hotel properties to work together to bid on larger conferences or sport tourism events, restaurants grouping together to market with critical mass or events partnering together to promote the city as THE festival destination, it just makes good business sense.

Make this the year to expand networks. It could be an extension of building partnerships but its a simple as creating an environment of mutual learning. No one in the industry is a guru. Everyone has their strengths, everyone has learned from mistakes and everyone has found successes. Learn and share from one another. It doesn't mean giving up the competitive secrets but it doesn't have to be. The more tourism partners that are doing well within a particular destination, the higher the reputation of the entire destination. Everybody wins when everybody is working at their best.

Make this the year to understand engage social media like never before. I might be beating a dead horse here but probably not. This is the new platform to reach new consumers, build relationships with existing ones and understand consumer demographics like never before. Take the time to understand and engage in social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter (not nearly enough businesses use this one), Youtube, Sprouter, LinkedIn. Bear in mind that these platforms are not static and are always changing. you have to continuously monitor and reinvent them. I will readily admit that I know that one all too well and this year, even we're re engineering the ones we once lead with but need some reinvestment in time and energy.

Invest more in your people. Tourism is still an industry of personal contact. Having well trained, knowledgeable, valued and happy employees is good for the bottom line. Perhaps its investing in training for them, acknowledging their contribution to your operation through positive reinforcement and ensuring they have the tools to meet your client's expectations. Make this they year to communicate more with your staff so they understand their role in the organization, the vision, expectation and values. Staff that feel connected are going to be happier, take more ownerships and likely stay around longer. When everyone in the organization is rowing together, good things happen.

Learn something new every day. Wake up every morning and view your business with fresh eyes. Tackle a problem that's been hindering your confidence level, learn a new business practice, learn how to fix things yourself around your business, understand how tourism policy works in your jurisdiction or understand emerging consumer trends. It can be anything but go home at the end of the day just a little smarter than when you started.

I could keep going but these are a few of the big things tourism industry partners can grab onto and apply to their own organizations. They're easy, they're achievable and they're often result in tangible benefits.

Ontario Tourism Launches "The Superior Adventure" Contest

2012-01-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership has always been a big supporter of the incredible outdoor experiences that exist in our city and region and the launch of their latest contest based campaign is no exception.

This morning, they officially launched the "The Superior Adventure" contest to show off its newly refreshed Outdoor Adventure travel website.

All adventurers are invited to enter the contest which features seven days of unforgettable experiences on Lake Superior's north shore with celebrity hosts Thunder Bay's own Darren and Michelle McChristie of Superior Outdoors magazine (and the Walleye, I might add).

After gearing up at Mountain Equipment Co-op and Henry's Cameras, the winner and three friends will set out to explore the scenic waters and rugged headlands of the world's largest freshwater lake, travelling the coast in the comfort of a Suburu Outback.

Highlights of the contest include return airfare with Porter, flying the winners into Thunder Bay to get started. They'll enjoy a guided hike through Pukaskwa National Park, wildlife viewing in Slate Islands Provincial Park, an Agawa Canyon train tour, kayaking, stand up paddling, sailing with Thunder Bay's own Sailsuperior, and an exclusive helicopter tour of the lake and spectacular shoreline. This trip is so epic, its valued at around $27 000 CDN. OTMPC and the various partners invite avid outdoor enthusiasts to enter online at www.onteriotravel.net/outdoor

Other local partners include Fort William Historical Park, Marostica Motors Suburu, Beyond the Giant Retreat, Rose Vally Lodge and others.

In addition, every contest submission automatically enters one for a chance at winning a Kodak Playsport Zx5. I own one personally and they are incredible little HD video cameras and their waterproof, shockproof and dustproof casing makes them rugged little travel companions to capture your epic adventure.

Steve Bruno, OTMPC's Outdoor Partnership Coordinator, is a great friend to the Thunder Bay and regional tourism industry and is one of our early supporters when we launched Seven Days With the Giant some 4 years back. He's the dedicated genius responsible for pulling this great campaign and the partners across the entire north shore together.

This campaign is a prime example of the importance of taking a regional approach to tourism development and marketing. Its done by taking what is undeniably one of the continent's great coastal drives as the foundation to build unique, high quality itineraries for outdoor enthusiasts who want to access the myriad of experiences along the coast by automobile. Looking at the calibre of the prize package, it drives home the point that we are an up and coming premier destination for the avid explorer.

Reflecting on the Successes of 2011.

2012-01-03T17:22:00.001-08:00

I'm Back!

I've taken a six month hiatus from my tourism industry blog while I stepped back from my tourism role to undertake a development assignment with the City's Waterfront Development Office. Its great to be back at my tourism desk and getting caught up on my blogging has been something I've looked forward too. It was an amazing opportunity to be part of tourism's capital development side of things and provided me with a greater appreciation of the work that goes into building something world class.

With the year ending, its always a good time to reflect on the past year in the local tourism industry and celebrate milestones and successes. Where to start?

Tourism Thunder Bay unveiled its new Meeting, Convention and Incentive Travel (MC & IT) program branding Thunder Bay as the "Unconventional Convention" destination by focusing on our connection to our natural environment as a more inspiring meeting location with unique meeting alternatives, focus on culinary and interesting corporate retreat and "off site" visitor experiences to stretch the corporate visit. The new look, punctuated by spectacular imagery, struck chords with meeting and conference planners immediately. Given our air connectivity to Canada's major centres, we're becoming a meeting location of choice in the health care, mining, government and NGO sectors.

Industry performance was driven by growth in a number of segments, most notably the sport tourism, conference and group travel markets. The Ontario Winter Special Olympics gave our winter hotel occupancy and attraction attendance a boost. The Harley Owner's Group Rally in July brought some 600 out of town riders to the community for a extended weekend event and we welcomed the M V C.Columbus and a total of over eight hundred European visitors to the new Pool 6 Cruise Terminal for two visits. We also played host to thousands of Northern Ontario residents this past summer as forest fires threatened their remote communities. All combined, we enjoyed Ontario's highest hotel occupancy rates right into the fall.

On the travel media side of things, we had unprecedented volume of media familiarization tours. We welcomed National Geographic's Andrew Evans, who spent a few days exploring everything from Fort William Historical Park and Hoito to a fly in Fishing trip with Tip Top Lodge and a visit to the proposed National Marine Conservation Area. We hosted Power Boat Television in August for the taping of a segment to air later this January and welcomed travel journalists from the Minneapolis area, Germany, France, South America, Southern Ontario, and western Canada. We were also featured on ESPN Sports Radio in the US midwest and in numerous on line blogs.

In June we hosted representatives from five international cruise shipping operators, seeking information on the region to aid them in developing new itineraries and markets. It was also the year we won the rights to host the 12016 Can Am Police and Fire Games that will see thousands of participants and their families from across North America enjoy our "Superior by Nature" hospitality.

This was also the year we launched, in collaboration with other strategic Provincial partners, two development initiatives that will change the way visitor discover, plan and experience their trip. The first was the creation of "Ride Lake Superior" in collaboration with Algoma Kinnewabi Travel Association from Sault St Marie. Starting with a series of motorcycle tourism readiness workshops that gave local attraction and accommodation providers tips on welcoming motorcycle visitors. The plan has quickly drawn interest from the U.S. side and promises to morph into a truly - and frankly long overdue - bi national product development and marketing initiative to position the Lake Superior basin as North America's most epic ride destination.

Secondly, our team participated with OTMPC in the unveiling of the online trip planning tool designed to enhance destination development for the motor sport and RV touring segments and help consumers navigate the region more effectively using their hand held devices.

This was also the year that the RTO began to find its legs as we developed new regional collaborative partnerships that will grow the tourism economy by working smarter and leveraging our human and financial resources. There's a long way to go but we've come a long way in only a shiort time and have made the tough decisions necessary to move the industry forward beyond our geopolitical silos.

A lot of great things happened this year in what is still overall, a tender global tourism economy and our city's tourism industry partners have every reason to be proud of their role in achieving those successes. We have great local partners who have invested in their visitor experiences and supported our strategy. We're not, by any means, at the top of the stairs yet. We'll keep climbing as an industry, into 2012 and beyond.

Cold April Influences U.S. Traffic Results

2011-06-17T12:37:00.001-07:00

The Spring spike in fuel prices and miserably cold weather (remember multiple snow falls and record hail in April prior to this year?) are being reflected in the early spring performance of our U.S. source markets. U.S. visitor traffic through the Pigeon River crossing declined 17% in April over the same month a year previous.

In April 2011, 1 792 US residents crossed into Canada south of Thunder Bay versus 2 163 a year previous. Same day traffic dropped most significantly to 643 this year compared to 924 in 2010. Single night stays rose to 172 from 151 and multiple night stays decreased to 977 from 1088 a year ago.

We're certainly hoping this isn't a trend we'll see continue. In 2010 we noticed a increase in U.S. touring traffic through Thunder Bay accommodation providers from mid spring to fall, signalling a shift in travel segments. Motorcycle and auto touring gained in popularity while the hunting and angling markets remained soft throughout the region. A continuing soft U.S. economy, $4 a gallon fuel and a horribly cold and snowy spring combine to influence early spring travel.

Based on last year's patterns and strong consumer response to our media channels, we continued to invest in US Midwest touring marketing such as AAA Living and Home and Away to build awareness in touring. To counter the current economic environment in attracting U.S. visitors, it is imperative that we focus on the calibre of the touring route around Lake Superior as an epic iconic "must see" experience that targets the avid educated and affluent traveller.

With a 330 million person source market beginning only 45 minutes drive from the city and indicators like the increase in motorcycle sales this year, we need to explore opportunities to shift strategy and seek new U.S. markets utilizing travel motivation and economic consumer trend data.

Artists and Vendors Wanted for Waterfront District Street Fair

2011-06-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

Plans are underway for the Ontario Provincial Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.®) Rally to be held in Thunder Bay July 28, 29, 30, 2011. This event invites H.O.G.® members from across Ontario, Canada, the United States and Globally to participate in a fun-filled weekend focused on riding and ridership.

It is anticipated that 600 participants will register and attend the event.

The Waterfront District BIA is planning to host a free summer event called the Waterfront District Street Fair on Friday, July 29, 2011 in conjunction with the H.O.G. Rally. This free street event will take place on Red River Road between Cumberland Street and Court Street and will host a display of antique cars (pending) for all visitors to our event to enjoy as well as artists, vendors, crafts, inflatable bouncers and other activities for children. The Waterfront District Street Fair will take place 10:00am – 6:00 pm in conjunction with the other activities taking place that day, including a show and shine plus live music one street over at the Casino.

If you are interested in renting 10x10 booth space as a participating Vendor or Artist where participants (and local residents) can shop, they invite you to participate in this event. A BIA member participating in this event will receive their space at no cost; however, will be charged a $25 tent rental fee if one is required. A non- BIA member is required to pay the cost of the space rental ($50) as well as the tent rental ($50), if required. Attached is a vendor registration form. Please complete this form and return it to the address provided. Spaces are limited and will be assigned on a first come first serve basis. Full payment must accompany your application (cheques made payable to: The Waterfront District BIA).

If you require more information, please contact Natalie O’Doherty, BIA Coordinator, at thewaterfrontdistrict@tbaytel.net or 807-343-9032.

Applications are first-come first-served and the final deadline is June 30th, 2011 Space is limited.

Thunder Bay April Hotel Occupancy Remains Strong

2011-06-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

Thunder Bay's April hotel performance continues to demonstrate growth with one of Canada's highest occupancy rates for the month.

April occupancy grew 4.8 points to 73% from 68.2% in April 2010 while RevPar increased 3.7 points to $67.68 from $65.28 a year ago. Average daily rate dropped however, from $95.74 to $92.71, signalling continued price competition within the marketplace that's ultimately benefiting the consumer. The Canadian average occupancy rate was 56.9%, up only .6 points from April 2010's 56.3%. Only the red hot Regina market and Yukon outperformed Thunder Bay on the occupancy level.

A continued strong meeting and convention segment, including the Northwestern Ontario Mines and Minerals Symposium, drove the April economy followed by a series of modest sport tourism events that, combined, contributed significantly to the city's overall occupancy performance. Thunder Bay's reputation provincially for hosting unique quality sport and corporate events combined with our significant air corridor coverage continues to be our strength in growing these important tourism segments.

Tourism Thunder Bay reports local accommodation performance from data provided by PKF Consulting. Tourism partners seeking greater detail of information should contact PKF directly

Tourism Thunder Bay Welcomes European Cruise Executives.

2011-06-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Tourism Thunder Bay had the privilege to host five European cruise and group tour executives in the City as part of a Great Lakes industry familiarization tour coordinated by the Great Lakes Cruising Coalition.

The Coalition, of which Thunder Bay is a member, represents over twenty Canadian and U.S. ports, cities, vessel managers and tourism organizations. This bi-national group is successful in leveraging resources to attract the global cruise shipping industry to consider the great Lakes for future itinerary development.

Representatives from German, French and British operators were accompanied by Stephen Burnett, our great friend and GLCC Executive Director as part of a ten day tour. Chartering a Amphibious Caravan from Watson's Skyways, they were able to land on the water at Red Rock (another GLCC Member) before continuing on to Thunder Bay for an overnight stay and tour.

While here, we escorted them around in style to showcase the calibre of shore services and transportation we're capable of providing as a community. We utilized Prestige Limousine's limo bus and driver Rob for the two days, providing the perfect platform to showcase the best our community has to offer them.

After settling into their hotel, they were taken up to Hillcrest Park, the Pool 6 Cruise Terminal and the new Prince Arthur's Landing development. From there it was onto Gargoyles for an epic dinner reception with some of Tourism Thunder Bay's partners in cruise shipping attraction. Doug Morrill, Gargoyle's owner and chef out did himself with a custom menu featuring all locally sourced ingredients including bison, pickerel, fresh greens and more. This was backed by some exceptional service from Gargoyle's team.

Following a great rest and breakfast at the Valhalla, our guests toured Fort William Historical Park, Kakabeka Falls, and finishing off at Whitewater Golf Club with a course tour and lunch. From there it was off to Wasaya where a chartered Pilatus whisked them onto Duluth to continue their fact finding journey.

Later this year, we'll welcome the C Columbus for two visits. While we have no commercial cruise vessels yet confirmed for 2012, we continue to work regionally in attracting vessel operators for the year and subsequent cruising seasons.

A big thanks goes out to all of Tourism Thunder Bay's partners involved in the familiarization tour. This familiarization tour was also made possible through funding provided through the Regional Tourism Organization and the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture. We continue to work with local and global industry partners in growing the cruise segment that enhances Thunder Bay's reputation as a port community.

Get Ready For the Motorcycle Market!

2011-06-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

Thunder Bay sits comfortably on the shore of the world's largest freshwater lake and along one of North America's iconic coastal touring routes. Growing our tourism economy depends on doing more to promote this route through a regional approach.

Motorcycle touring, in particular, is a growing trend being noted by everyone from border staff to hotels, attractions and visitor centers. U.S. motorcycle sales up 7.2% in the first quarter of 2011 with some 102 000 motorcycles sold in the US during the first three months of this year. Leading the growth is the scooter (49%), dual sport (24.3%) and road bike segments (6.9%). more people are getting out riding and more boomers are hitting the road.

We, like many others around the lake, want to position the Lake Superior coastal touring area as one of the world's best motorcycle touring routes and that means offering more than just good roads and scenic vistas. It means a completely motorcycle friendly tourism industry ready and willing to welcome and serve the needs of motorcyclists. One need only to be an avid follower of Lake Superior magazine to understand what a stunning part of the world this is.

As part of our commitment to industry education, we've teamed up with Algoma Kinnewabi Travel Association, RTO13 and Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture to bring a motorcycle touring readiness workshop to Thunder Bay June 21st. The session takes place at the Victoria Inn, coincidentaly the host hotel for this summer's Ontario H.O.G. Rally.

We've contracted Chris Hughes of BC Hughes Consulting, one of the Province's best known experts in experiential tourism, an avid enthusiast of all things 2-wheeled and is the follow responsible for Bruce County Tourism's spectacular presence on the Ontario tourism scene prior to setting out to share his knowledge with others.

This workshop is open to any tourism establishment interested in becoming more welcoming to the motorcycle touring segment and committed to enhancing the visitor experience along one of the continent's best scenic drive routes.

If you're interested in attended the Thunder Bay session, check out the online invitation here or email kyle@bchughes.com to register.

Tourism Thunder Bay Celebrates Tourism Week

2011-06-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

Tourism Thunder Bay is celebrating Tourism Week in Ontario with a number of initiatives developed to encourage local residents to rediscover the great attractions and events around the city this summer.

On Tuesday June 7th, Tourism Thunder Bay, in collaboration with the Prince Arthur Hotel, is hosting a day long city familiarization tour for front line tourism professionals in the city, attracting visitor center, hotel, restaurant and retail front line staff from across the city. The tour features stops at major attractions around the city and provides tourism industry professionals with information that improves their ability to be a tourism ambassador for the hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city each year.

Guide services are provided by Lake Superior Visits and the on board lunch supported by the Prince Arthur Hotel. The tour will be departing from the Terry Fox Visitor Centre at 8:30 AM on Tuesday June 7th.

“The annual tourism tour is a popular and educational event that trains our city’s tourism professionals about the great attractions and events around the community. Our goal is to develop a well-educated tourism workforce that can provide visitors with the information that encourages them to see more and stay longer.” according to Tourism Division Manager, Paul Pepe.

On Friday June 10th, the Terry Fox Visitor Centre will be celebrating Tourism Week with persians and coffee. Visitors and residents are encouraged to stop by between 10 AM and 3 PM to meet with visitor services specialists, pick up a copy of the City’s visitor experience magazine and learn more about the city’s wide range of experiences.

The June 13th edition MyTBay features information on the city’s events and attractions. With almost one quarter of visitors to the city coming to visit friends and family, local residents play an important role as tourism ambassadors. Understanding the city’s many cultural and culinary attractions and events helps residents entertain their guests and helps grow our tourism economy at the same time.

For more information on Thunder Bay’s summer attractions and events, visit http://www.visitthunderbay.com/.

March U.S. Traffic Update

2011-05-31T06:37:00.000-07:00

U.S. visitation to Thunder Bay showed a decline over the previous year, pointing to a continued challenge in attracting close haul markets in the shoulder seasons.

2 180 US residents crossed into Canada at Pigion River this past March, down from 2 813 residents in March 2010.

We saw reductions across all three catagories. Same day traffic dropped to 681 from 916, one night stays dropped to 172 from 193 and multiple night stays dropped to 1 327 from 1 704. Our March U.S. visitation is generally focused on the Cook County source market that sees families and couples head into the city for shopping, theatre, culinary and other getaway activities. Our second market is sport travel, highlited by the popularity of the Sleeping Giant Loppet with U.S. ski enthusiasts as well as hockey, curling and swim events that attract U.S. participants in modest numbers.

High fuel prices and currency parity are issues that have likely contributed to this decline. However, weather is also a factor not to be overlooked. March 2010 was well above seasonal, with a complete snow melt along the highway corridor occuring prior to spring break. This past March, continual cold and snowy weather left the corridor less than ideal for road travel, likely prompting many potential visitors to stay home.

We continue to monitor the economic environment, changes to travel motivators, and evaluating our competitive advantages. This guides us in making adjustments to our marketing and PR strategies in the U.S. source markets. Given that the U.S. is a 330 million person source market starting only 45 minutes south of the city, its foolish to eliminate out US marketing strategies. Rather, we need to continually refine our focus in engaging avid experience seekers who's travel passions and interests align with our product strengths.

Fort William Historical Park Offers Great New Adventures

2011-05-31T05:55:00.000-07:00

Fort William Historical Park continues to evolve its already fantastic programming by taking advantage of one of the city's most incredible urban park settings to improve visitor retention.

This year, the Fort is promoting outdoor adventures, including canoe and kayak rentals (Don't worry, they're new so you don't have to worry about patching birch bark). This is a great way to introduce new paddlers to the sport or cater to adventure seekers who want to pack light while touring the region.

The Fort is also promoting overnight tent and RV camping at its recently opened campground and has created nature trails on its own 25 acre island located upstream from the Fort on the fabled Kaministiquia River, a critical water trade route to the exploration and expansion into Western Canada.

And of course, with a full summer schedule of summer weekend events kicking off with Rendezvous with Italy on June 11 and 12 and the historic site open daily, there's more to keep adventure seekers here in the city longer.

Of course, Fort William Historical Park is already one of Canada's top outdoor attractions. The addition of this programming enhances that reputation and builds strength into Thunder Bay's tourism position as one of Canada's Best Outdoor Cities.

Porter Increases Flight Capacity to Thunder Bay

2011-05-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

Thunder Bay's reputation as a popular leisure, business and sport tourism destination continues to grow and increased air capacity into the city is expanding with it.

Porter Airlines has increased flight frequency to the Thunder Bay market from Toronto City Centre Airport. Weekday frequency increases to five flights per weekday from three. Sunday frequency increases to four flights and Saturday frequency remains at two flights.

Weekday departures times from Toronto to Thunder Bay are now 7 AM, 9:15 AM, 2:05 PM, 5 PM and 6:55 PM.

Porter's convenience and exceptional reputation for quality has been an asset to helping us attract avid leisure, sport and corporate guests to the city and region. In fact, the April/May edition of the Re:Porter, the airline's in flight magazine, features a full page advertisement promoting Thunder Bay as an ideal city for meetings and conferences. Our evolving MC and IT strategy weaves our reputation as one of Canada's Best Outdoor Cities into our urban capacity for hosting unique corporate events and offering pre and post conference experiences as diverse as skiing, fly in angling retreats, biking, hiking or just exploring. Conference planners looking for something different seem to welcome the departure from the concrete jungles of large city convention halls.

For more information on planning your "Unconventional Convention, visit our site.

Multiplex Citizen and Industry Input Sessions Coming Up.

2011-05-27T05:59:00.000-07:00

The City of Thunder Bay will be looking for citizens’ views, comments and suggestions on preliminary facility configuration and site options for a proposed Multipurpose Event Centre (Multiplex).

"We want to hear from the public as the planning phase moves into its next stage," said Mayor Keith Hobbs. "We will be narrowing down site locations and business models for more detailed study." The Multiplex is proposed in the City’s Renew Thunder Bay Plan as a high priority, major legacy project over the next five years. The next set of Open Houses will allow the public to provide their input on where the facility should be located and how they would like to see it operated.

"This facility could be a major economic development catalyst for the City, but it must also be affordable to taxpayers and have a strategic location that maximizes opportunity to draw events, users and visitors at a regional, national and international level," said City Manager Tim Commisso.

There will be two Open Houses held, with presentations at 7 pm followed by a question and answer forum and feedback opportunities:

Wednesday, June 1
6:30 – 9 pm
DaVinci Centre, Marco Polo Room, 340 Waterloo St. S

Thursday, June 2
6:30 – 9 pm
Italian Cultural Centre, Main Hall, 132 Algoma St. S

For more information or questions, contact Stacey Levanen @ 625-3650.

Thunder Bay Makes Tripadvisor's Top 25 Canadian Destinations List

2011-05-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Thunder Bay continues to improve its brand position as Canada's Best Outdoor City and a increasingly desirable destination or gateway for visitors seeking some of North America's best outdoor experiences, sport tourism or conference experience.

TripAdvisor, the hugely popular online consumer travel portal, has recently announced Canada's top twenty five city destinations based on traveller reviews and Thunder Bay has made that list with a number twenty four ranking.

This is the first time we've made the list and is testament to the City's transformation in recent years to a culturally rich and eclectic urban centre with intimate connections to its natural environment. Looking at the City's spectacular waterfront transformation, growth in the university and college sectors, a growing reputation as a leading edge health sciences, research and mining centre, the explosion of our culinary and arts scene and major attraction investments in the National Marine Conservation Area, Provincial Parks and attractions, its easy to see the momentum that is propelling our industry and reputation upwards. The leadership and investments being shown in various economic sectors highlights the importance of an interconnected economy and how they can contribute to a stronger tourism sector.

Certainly, our goal is to continually improve on our position and rankings in this and other consumer measurement channels by building equity on the Canada's Best Outdoor City vision statement. We'll achieve this through a stable long term approach that focuses on our key asset strengths yet demonstrates flexibility to adapt to shifts in the consumer market segments.

March Hotel Occupancy Continued its Occupancy Rate Rise.

2011-05-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

March 2011 continued to be a strong month for Thunder Bay's accommodation sector with occupancy levels among the highest in Canada. Healthy increases are reported over March 2010, which in itself was stronger over the previous year. Lets face it. 2009 was a year most of the global tourism industry wants to forget anyway.

Hotel occupancy rose to 72%, up 2.7 points from 69.3 in March 2010. Average daily rate, however dipped to $92.32 from $96.54, signaling price competition among various properties to attract guests. This price competition translated into a slight dip in revenue per available room by 0.6% to $66.43 from $66.86 a year ago.
Overall, Thunder Bay's hotel performance continued to outshine the nation average of 57.6% and our growth rate outpaced the 1.6% national average. Revenue per available room locally, however, remains lower than the national average of $70.82.

A strong March is likely due to strong mining and health sciences related domestic corporate travel to the city, and reasonably strong sport tourism attendance for the annual Sibley Ski tour. While spring break brought some regional domestic leisure traffic into the city, the strong Canadian dollar has translated into many heading into Minnesota.

We report hotel performance based on data supplied by PKF Consulting. For our tourism partners seeking more detailed data, they can contact PKF directly.

WIN AN INCREDIBLE BLUESFEST GETAWAY IN THUNDER BAY

2011-05-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

In Celebration of National Tourism Week – June 6 – 12th, 2011, Tourism Thunder Bay is giving away an incredible Blues Festival getaway for two in Thunder Bay.

The Thunder Bay Blues Festival is one of the largest and most anticipated events of the summer.
Blues fans gather on the shores of Lake Superior to enjoy a spectacular line-up of well known international musicians and an all-star line-up of national and local talent.
Now in its 10th year – this event scheduled for July 8th – 10th at Marina Park - promises to delivery more of the best fans have come to expect!

The Prize Package coordinated by Lake Superior Visits includes Round-trip airfare for Two people to Thunder Bay; 4 day Car Rental with National Car & Truck Rental; 3 nights accommodations at McVicar Manor B&B; two weekend VIP passes to the 10th Annual Thunder Bay Blues Festival; gift certificates for the world-famous Hoito Restaurant, the Prospector Steak House and Lot66 Restro Lounge & Wine Bar; a Thunder Bay harbour tour by SailSuperior.com with great views of the Sleeping Giant and the Blues Festival; Unique Personal Transportation to and from the Festival and/or bike rentals courtesy of Superior Pedicabs and all applicable taxes.

“This campaign encourages locals to become ambassadors and invite their friends and family to visit Thunder Bay this summer with a fun contest theme that showcases just how much there is to see and do in our great city.” According to Tourism Manager Paul Pepe.

Out-of-town friends and family can enter the contest at www.VisitThunderBay.com
The contest opens at 12 noon May 17, 2011 & closes at 12 midnight June 20th. More information about the 10th Annual Thunder Bay Blues Festival can be found at www.tbayblues.ca

Small Businesses Playing an Increasing Role as Tourism Ambassadors

2011-03-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

I've noticed something positive lately around the community with respect to the growing number of businesses, some peripheral to the core tourism industry, displaying and distributing our Thunder Bay visitor information.

This is great to see and speaks to a growing movement within our business community to be local ambassadors for all the great activities and experiences that exist in and around the city. This information is being picked up, not only by visitors but by local residents too and that's important by educating locals, increasing their pride in the city and becoming ambassadors themselves.

For the past few years a deliberate element of our media strategy has been the placement of our visitor information in grocery stores during the summer and Christmas seasons. With over 26% of visitors to our city here to visit friends and family, and those visitors needing to be fed, its a logical distribution point and one that has proven effective in increasing local awareness of our range of popular attractions and hidden gems. It gets people out exploring, extends their stay and improves the overall economic impact of the local industry, resulting in greater economic sustainability.

Our Visitor magazine is showing up, however, in a wider range of locations than just hotel lobbies, gas stations and grocers. I'm seeing them on the counters of small neighborhood restaurants. Golden Crown Pizza and Hodder Greeks on North Cumberland and 31A Junot Cafe on Junot St are but three examples I'll single out and recognize for their role in helping us sell the city. All are fantastic little neighborhood operations that I frequent on a regular basis. On separate occasions, I've noticed the Thunder Bay Experience magazine on display in their businesses and eventually I asked the owners what made them consider having them on display.

These three small neighborhood businesses see themselves as part of our larger tourism economy. I've been interested to learn that in addition to the local markets they service, they are all popular stops for visitors to the city looking for a quick tasty meal and even wi-fi access. All are on or near major arteries near the highway and relatively close to motels and hotels. Its been informative to understand the tourism value to their small businesses and value added the provide their clients by having our high quality 96 page magazine available for free.

One younger employee of one of these establishments remarked to me, holding the magazine in his hand "I don't know how anyone can say there's nothing to do here after reading this book." And that is our intention with this strategy. Converting locals to be ambassadors and help visitors find their desired experiences.

According to Stats Canada, over 1315 businesses in Thunder Bay rely on tourism receipts for some or all of their revenue. It becomes easy to see how so many businesses can and do benefit from tourism and how many others playing a role to help inform their clientele.

What has been also interesting has been to hear the owners and employees of these establishments talking with pride about what they learned from reading our visitor information about their own back yard how its increased their pride in the city and how they've proceeded to educate others (customers, friends and family) on what we have to offer. I've always said that to sell Thunder Bay to the world, we have to sell it to ourselves first. We have to be proud of where we're from and what we have, confident in our community and celebrate our uniqueness and even our quirks. These small businesses are helping us play a major role in getting the message out. Its exciting to think of our entire business community all being tourism ambassadors, educated on the wide range of our experiences and making visitor's stays more enjoyable and ultimately increasing the economic impacts through increased visitor retention.

If you are a small business that is interested in being a tourism ambassador, contact our Coordinator of Visitor Services, Rose Marie Tarnowski at rtarnowski@thunderbay.ca who can arrange pick up or delivery of our 2011 Visitor Experience magazines.

January Visitor Centre Traffic Up in January, Down in February...What More Can We Say?

2011-03-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

With the four laning construction work and new entrance being built into the Terry Fox Visitor Center, the winter's been a little hectic around there.

That is why its good to report January's visitation to the centre was up 53% over Janaury 2010. This year, 717 Visitors, largely from Ontario (458), followed by Manitoba (91), visited the centre, versue 468 the previous year. The reason is very likely tied to the Ontario Winter Special Olympic Games held here in the city that saw hundreds of participants and family members froma cross Ontario attend. Canadian traffic dominated at 89%, US traffic was 61 residents (9%) and overseas traffic accounted for 18 (or 3%) visitors. This percentage breakdown is normal for January as US traffic and long haul transient traffic slows during the winter months.

February, however, was not so great and we did see a decline in traffic over the previous year by about 19% to 547 from 676 the year before. Once again, Canadian traffic accounted for 89%, US traffic at 10% and overseas at about 1%. February saw a significant number of snowfall days over the previous February, likely resulting in less highway traffic along the north shore. Snowfalls days can generally decrease daily visitation by up to 70%.

As we move into the spring and summer, the construction in the area will be ramping up even more so than it has through the winter months that saw a lot of rock blasting in the area. Expect some detours in the area and eventually a new park entrance roughly 800 meters to the east of the existing entrance towards the highway 527 intersection. I suspect the detour situation may compromise our statistical The new entrance will create safer sight lines and dedicated turn lanes, replacing the current location on a curve that when compounded by the four name divided road, would become too dangerous.

January U.S. Visitation Down Overall But Economic Impacts Steady Through Increased Retention.

2011-03-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

U.S. visitation to Thunder Bay in January 2011 posted a slight decrease over 2010 but the positive story is that more visitors stayed longer.

While the continued decrease overall is cause for concern, with 1408 U.S. residents crossing into Ontario versus 1476 the previous December, a closer look at the numbers reveals something interesting and somewhat encouraging with respect to increased visitor retention. Obviously, the longer a visitor stays in the city or region, the greater their economic impact so keeping the visitors we have staying and exploring longer, the more that tourism partners benefit.

While the January numbers overall were down, single and 2+ nights saw significant growth. Single night traffic rose from 82 to 130 visitors in 2011 over 2010 while 2+ nights increased from 624 to 720 over 2010. Same day traffic took the the full force of the decline, plummeting
to 558 from 770.

Using Ministry of Tourism regional tourism profile data for the City of Thunder Bay, the average U.S. resident spends an average $238 per visit on overnight trips and only $160 for day trips. Therefore the total economic impact for January 2011 is $291 580 versus $291 228, an ever so slight increase over the previous year. It drives home the point that while the number of visitors is one important measurement, total impact is equally if not more important. Looking beyond the surface, analysing shifting visitation trends and understanding the economic impacts of those shifts is critical to looking at the bigger picture with greater accuracy. Of course we still want to see increased visitation AND spending but its important during these challenging economic times for the overall industry, to celebrate every victory.

Selling Great Lakes Cruise Shipping Potential to The Travel Trade At Cruise Shipping Miami

2011-03-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

This past March 13-17, Tourism Thunder Bay once again has a visible presence at Seatrade's Cruise Shipping Miami Conference as part of our active involvement in the Great Lakes Cruising Coalition, a twenty member bi-national partnership of US and Canadian Port Authorities, Tourism organizations and vessel management firms operating within the lake system.

Seatrade's Cruise Shipping Miami is thew world's largest annual gathering of cruise shipping industry executives, destinations and cruise shipping industry supply chain representatives, attracting over 8000 delegates and over 900 exhibitors selling everything from pre packaged foods to destinations, vessel furnishings and even entire vessels.

While the event is still largely dominated by the big six large cruise shipping giants, which represent big ship cruising and make up the bulk of the global industry, the last few years have given the small cruising market a foothold at the show, beginning in 2010 with educational segments dedicated to the expedition and discovery cruising segments, a small but growing niche that attracts more active avid cruisers who have tried large ships and want something smaller or simply want itineraries that are more authentic and personal.

Expedition or more appropriately "Exploration" and Discovery cruising is what the Great Lakes is all about. Seaway dimensions limiting vessels to 740 feet in length by 78 feet in beam effectively restrict the large ships from entering the locks above Montreal but a small but growing fleet of smaller intimate cruising vessels are plying the world's waterways, hungry for new cruising destinations.

Some interesting trends this year pointed to an overall growth projection across all cruising segments and several new builds and recent transactions of the existing discovery fleet, estimated at around 63 vessels, prove that the market has tremendous futurity. For the Great Lakes, we remain a relative hidden gem among more well known destinations globally. however, having a tremendous source market close at hand, air corridor connectivity, safe cruising waters and unique natural and developed attractions (such as the locks themselves) form the ingredients to create memorable and value enriched itineraries for ship owners and tour operators alike.

The exploration and discovery markets are traditional avid, upscale adventurers who want to learn about the areas they visit, to absorb authentic experiences, see something the masses do not and do so with an expectation of an incredibly high level of quality service. Many of the tour operators that cater to this segment are in the 50-250 passenger realm. Over the past thirteen years, we've seen visits by the Clelia II, a 100 passenger vessel, Ponnant Cruise's "Le Levant" and Hapag Lloyd's C.Columbus, which will be returning to the City later this summer for two stops.

Our coalition this year was represented by our Executive Director, representatives of the U.S. Seaway Authority, Toronto Port Authority and yours truly, providing a broad scope of information to prospective new ship operators by being able to accommodate their vessel logistics, inspections and itinerary queries. This year our cruising coalition saw Wawa and Red Rock join, ensuring that five of our twenty members are from the Lake Superior area alone, joining Duluth, Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay, a testament to the potential everyone around the lake sees in growing this segment.

As in past years, our mission was to promote the potential of the lakes to the cruise operators and vessel owners, learn best practices and source ideas for improving our own destination marketing and development opportunities. Our coalition's work culminated in our Great Lakes Cruising Coalition Dinner Reception, held at the famed Delano Hotel on South Beach where members of the Coalition met with the executives of several discovery lines and vessel mangers over supper to discuss cruise opportunities and entice them to consider the region as a profitable new destination to serve their loyal existing clientele and attract new markets.

While Cruise Shipping represents a little over one half of a percent of Thunder Bay's overall tourism receipts annually, its a strategic segment in that it is high profile and aligned with respected and renowned brands in cruising and unique and exotic visitor experiences. In 2010, ten vessel visits generated approximately $423 000 in local and regional economic impacts, including passenger, crew and vessel services and supplies. In Thunder Bay alone, over 36 companies were positively impacted by our cruise ship industry from attractions to retail galleries, transportation, security and vessel supply firms. We spend several thousand dollars annually in landscape upkeep to the terminal and our marketing and promotional budget allocated to cruise shipping is a little under $8000 annually, representing slightly less than 0.8% of our operating budget. The collaborative partnership nature of the organization and the need to promote the entire region to operators, rather than a single city, allow our modest annual investment to leverage significant support from other partners and orders of government.

At the Pool 6 Cruise Ship Terminal (I really hope to find a better name at some point) we've invested close to a quarter million dollars in transforming a former grain elevator dock and brown field into a safe, secure and aesthetically pleasing and security compliant passenger terminal. While much work still needs to be done over the coming years, we've adopted a pragmatic incremental approach to making investments in what is already a tremendous asset of an 800 foot log deep-water marine slip. We've painted, created a park like setting, planted flowers, flown flags and welcome banners, installed complimentary wi-fi, created a shore side crew lounge, provided crew transportation, and ensured a customer first approach to delivering exceptional customer service, making guests, crew and vessel operators alike feel welcome in the community.

The development of the future Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area, our significant air connectivity to source markets, our unique cultural composition and our own spectacular transformation of our waterfront are but several examples of the evolving assets on the lake system that have the potential attract vessels into the future and can very well boost the economic impact of the cruising market for our area and raise the profile and reputation of the community and region as a unique and exotic cruising destination like any where else on the planet. Quite simply, this is how we have to think about the assets we have and position ourselves to the market. I've often said that we have to be confident and bold. In fact, our entire tourism strategy speaks that language every day in our vision to become regarded as Canada's Best Outdoor City.

There are two good times to plant a tree. Twenty years ago and today. Taking a long term collaborative approach will generate greater interest in the lakes and grow a financially and environmentally sustainable cruise over time.

ONLINE REGISTRATION NOW OPEN FOR SECOND ANNUAL THUNDER BAY MARATHON

2011-03-08T06:03:00.000-08:00

One of Thunder Bay's newest fall sport tourism events is back after an incredibly successful inaugural race in 2010. The Board of Directors of the Thunder Bay Marathon - Miles with the
Giant are pleased to announce that registration for our second annual event on September 18, 2011 is now open. Individuals can register their participation in the marathon, half-marathon or 10K races at www.thunderbaymarathon.com. Registration costs start at $90 for the marathon, $70 for the half-marathon, and $40 for the 10K.

“Our first event in 2010 was a great success with 846 runners from over 75 communities across Canada, the US, Sweden and Kenya,” said Barry Streib, President & Chair.
Once again this year, organizers are pleased to confirm the return of running legend Dick Beardsley. Beardsley is best known for his incredible race in the 1982 Boston Marathon. That race, on a very hot day, was dubbed the “Duel in the Sun” as he battled world record holder Alberto Salazar down to the finish line.

“I’m very excited Thunder Bay to be coming back for a second year to kick-off the Miles With the Giant races in September,” says Beardsley. “Last year’s event was extraordinarily successful, and I know that the Thunder Bay Marathon is well on its way to becoming a world renowned event.”

Beardsley will be the guest speaker at a pre-race Pasta Dinner at the Da Vinci Centre on September 17th. Dinner tickets are available through the online registration form or by calling (807) 627-7770.

Participants also have the option to raise pledges for their favourite charity through the
Run for a Reason Charity Pledge Program by simply choosing a charity during the registration process. The participating charities are: Camp Quality, Easter Seals Society, Habitat for Humanity, Heart & Stroke Foundation, and the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation.

Sponsors and volunteers are still needed to make the Thunder Bay Marathon - Miles with the Giant a huge success. Visit www.thunderbaymarathon.com for more information.

City Tourism Partners Win City Green Awards

2011-03-07T16:59:00.000-08:00

Two city tourism partners have been recognized this month for their efforts to reduce waste and energy consumption. As many know, I am an advocate of seeing Thunder Bay's tourism industry becoming leaders in urban sustainable tourism. Its been great to see so many local tourism partners embrace these principals and understand that environmental and economic sustainability can co exist.

The Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel and Suites, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this month, recently installed new boilers that have reduced energy consumption by a whopping 30% and installed a new commercial dishwasher that cuts both the amount of water and detergent use by almost half. The old washing unit was recycled for its stainless steel value. During the recent room renovations, the hotel donated their older furnishing to Habitat for Humanity, ensuring they could find a new life and support a great local charity rather than end up in the city landfill.

And once again OLG Casino Thunder Bay was recognized for its work in reducing energy consumption by 12%, rounding up over 62 000 pounds of used electronics for recycling and planting, maintaining and donating the vegetables from their own community garden.

Congratulations to these two local tourism partners that embrace environmental sustainability. For more information on the City's environmental programs, click here.

Local Outfitters Profiled in Chicago Market with ESPN Radio

2011-03-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years, Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership has been increasing Northwestern Ontario's presence into the US Midwest markets, primarily around outdoor and more specifically, angling experiences.

In Chicago, the program is aptly titled "Canada's Great Outdoors" and thanks to an investment partnership between the Regional Tourism Organization and OTMPC totalling almost $600 000, the program has continued to grow in 2011.

Prior to 2001, Northwestern Ontario was well known in the US Midwest and it was a major market for summer outdoor experience seekers. Obviously, security and economic changes post 2001 created a new environment and the marketing efforts disappeared. Curtailing marketing efforts at that time did little other than reduce and almost eliminate our brand awareness into the Illinois market.

This year we have a multi media mixture of web, radio, bill board and print to help regain market share in a significant close haul market where research has indicated over the past four years, a large, economically solid foundation of outdoor enthusiasts. The call to action is Canadasgreatoutdoors.com, a portal developed to help outdoor enthusiasts in the US and other international markets navigate to find their desired experiences and provides individual tourist operators the chance to link free to the site, helping consumers find their way to them. Operators can list free of charge on the site and it gives them another opportunity for potential new clients to find them.

In addition to having Thunder Bay's Patrick Sharp and Babe Winkleman, one of the US's most well known as respected outdoor personalities, as radio spokespersons, we have also sponsored Chauncey's Great Outdoors, a Saturday morning radio program on ESPN 1000. As part of the twelve week sponsorship, we've offered twelve spots to Northwestern Ontario tourist outfitters to tell the avid outdoor enthusiast, their stories.

I've had a chance to meet Chauncey Niziol a few times over the past year and he's one of the most passionate, down to earth, fun and outgoing outdoor personalities I've met. his weekly radio show is heard by tens of thousands and his pod casts by thousands more. He also knows where to find me Chicago's best roast beef sandwiches...but that's another story.

After week two of the sponsorship, we've already been able to feature two great area outfitters. Last weekend, we kicked off the sponsorship with an interview with Alan Cheeseman of Wildernesss North and yesterday, featured John Covello of Dog Lake Resort. Both of these operators are high quality class acts, the kinds of folks we want to highlight for the exceptional angling experiences they provide, their amazing approach to customer service and their entrepreneurial spirit.

What I really love is that both Alan and John understand the connection between the urban and outdoors in our area and both plugged Thunder Bay as their gateway cities and the air connection from the Chicago area, particularly using Porter Airlines. It's important that we work closely with the world class angling providers outside our city limits because it helps raise the profile of Thunder Bay as Canada's Best Outdoor City and helps increase the economic impact in the city when our outdoor visitors stay a night, buy dinner, rent a car, or buy gas, bait, etc.

You can listen to the Wilderness North interview here, starting at the 17 minute mark.

You can tune into Dog Lake Resort's interview here, starting just after the 19 minute mark.

We'll be featuring Lake Superior Salmon fishing soon and there are still opportunities for lodge operators to take advantage of one of a few remaining sponsorship spots. There's no cost to participate. Anyone interested can contact me at ppepe@thunderbay.ca

The Canada's Great Outdoors is probably one of the best brand positioning efforts I've seen in a long time and there is tremendous opportunity for us in the Northwest to grow it and make it fit our specific experiences and markets. This can very well expand beyond its current geographic placement in Illinois and be prominently promoted through US and global avid outdoor media channels that will increase the position of the Northwest and from there, drive new exposure opportunities for individual operators. Its unfortunate that the uptake by the regional marketers to this program or interest to make it their own has been limited but thankfully we have a growing segment of the outfitter's market interested in pursuing new and innovative approaches to positioning our outdoors as it should be positoned - as world class.

Porter Improves Thunder Bay Flights to 5 per Day

2011-03-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

Porter Airlines is increasing flights to five daily roundtrips from three on its Thunder Bay-Toronto City Airport route. The new schedule takes effect May 25, and operates year-round.

“Thunder Bay has been a consistently popular route and we are often at capacity on those flights,” said Robert Deluce, president and CEO of Porter Airlines. “The opportunity to add service at this time speaks to the joint efforts of Porter and Thunder Bay International Airports Authority to promote air service in the region, as well as the great support we get from people looking for competitively-priced travel alternatives.”

Porter began flying between Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport and Thunder Bay in 2009, as a seasonal route. Year-round service was added soon afterwards in response to the route’s success.

Thunder Bay International Airports Authority Inc. President & CEO, Scott McFadden, welcomed the news of increased Porter flights, saying, “With this increase in service, Thunder Bay and the region will enjoy more high quality air service options than ever before, and our low cost, no passenger fee strategy will continue to ensure the Community enjoys the lowest possible air fares.”

Highlights of the new schedule include:
· 5 roundtrip flights each weekday
· 4 roundtrip flights on Sunday
· 2 roundtrip flights on Saturday

Connecting flight schedules via Toronto to Porter destinations such as Montreal, Ottawa, Sudbury, New York, Boston and Chicago are also improved with this increase in frequency.
Known for its affordable, premium service, including complimentary in-flight wine and beer, extra legroom and comfortable departure lounges, Porter operates a fleet of 70-seat Bombardier Q400 aircraft. It features high cruising speed, revolutionary cabin noise-reduction technology and environmentally-friendly engines.

Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is conveniently located just minutes from downtown, providing easy access to the financial and entertainment districts.

Flights are available for booking through travel agencies, www.flyporter.com, or Porter’s Call Centre at (888) 619-8622.

Direction Ontario Offers Francophone Tourism Market Toolkit and Workshop

2011-02-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

Direction Ontario, the Provincial organization responsible for marketing to to the Francophone market, is conducting workshops across all thirteen RTO regions to provide a better understanding of the potential of the Francophone market, both within the Province and into Quebec.

For the Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario region, the Francophone market remains a small segment of our overall Canadian travel demographics. Based on registration data collected at our visitor centres, and compared with Ministry of Tourism's regional profile data, the Francophone market currently makes up approximately 3.5% of the 435 000 Canadian travellers to the city annually. However, given the significance of French influence in the development of the modern economy of the region and a strong french cultural fabric in the area, there is a core product that is or is close to being market ready to attract the Quebec touring segment.

A Webinar session for Region 13C is scheduled for February 24th, 2011 from 8:30 to 11 AM (EST).

The session will provide an better understanding of the toolkit they've developed to help Ontario's tourism industry understand the Francophone market. The workshop will also provide an analysis of the travel motivators of the Francophone traveller and will give an assessment of the state of Ontario's Francophone ready product and provide evaluation tools to help our tourism industry respond to the needs of that segment of the market better. The session will wrap up with a round table discussion of emerging product that could become market ready and an overview of the services Direction Ontario provides.

To Register, contact Louise Lacroix At louise.lacroix@directionontario.ca by Wednesday February 23rd.

To participate in the conference, visit Megameeting.com and enter Direction Ontario as the Meeting Host and enter "francophonemarkets13cworkshop" as the meeting name. To connect a land line, call 1-866-737-8517 and pass code 9860105

Thunder Bay's Hotel Occupancy Ends 2010 on a High Note.

2011-02-14T13:24:00.000-08:00

The December 2010 hotel performance numbers are in and Thunder Bay continued to show improved performance right to the end of the year, particularly interesting given how difficult December traditionally is to fill hotel rooms when convention traffic winds down prior to the Christmas holidays and Christmas leisure traffic generally stays with friends and family.

Thunder Bay's hotel occupancy rate in December was 55.4%, up 5.2 points over the previous year and we reported the highest occupancy for the entire country. Average daily rate increased 4.6% to $95.48 and revenue per available room shot up 15.3% to $52.91. The average Canadian occupancy rate for December 2010 was 44.8%.

Year end results continue to support growth in the hotel segment, with the city posting a 70.5% occupancy rate, up 5.2 points from 2009. The City saw modest growth of 1.1% on Average daily rate, and a 9.2% increase in RevPar to $68.81. By contrast, the Canadian industry posted a 60.3% occupancy rate for the year.

This data is from PKF Consulting Trends Report. For tourism partners seeking more detailed information, please contact PKF at www.pkfcanada.com for their range of services to the tourism and hospitality industries.

SEVEN DAYS WITH THE GIANT RETURNS

2011-02-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

Tourism Thunder Bay, in association with local and regional tourism organizations and operators, is bringing back Canada’s ultimate outdoor adventure campaign–Seven Days With The Giant.

This summer, one lucky winner and three friends will enjoy an all expense paid weeklong adventure exploring the city and North Shore region. Winners will start with paid return airfare from anywhere in North America, digital camera package, camping gear and a beautiful Thunder Bay print. From there, they will create their own adventure with the assistance of Lake Superior Visits to include exploring Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Kakabeka Falls, Fort William Historical Park, sailing and angling on Lake Superior, mountain biking, hiking, culinary and cultural adventures, and many more customizable outdoor and urban activities.

This year’s program, valued at over $15 000, expands to include, not only Thunder Bay experiences but those from the Dorion and Nipigon areas as well, opening up even more opportunities for the winners to explore the variety of adventures that suit their tastes and abilities. The campaign’s target reach is also evolving to focus on more experiential Canadian and US travel media including Explore Magazine, National Geographic, Canadian Geographic, AAA Living, Lake Superior Magazine, Northern Wilds and Canoe and Kayak print and digital media channels.

This year’s sponsors include Ontario Parks, Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture, OTMPC, Best Western Norwester Hotel and Conference Centre, National Car Rental, Lake Superior Visits, Fort William Historical Park, Gear Up for Outdoors, SailSuperior.com, Epic Adventures, Lot 66, Caribou, 5 Forks, Thunder Bay Observatory, Archie’s Charters, Golf Thunder Bay, and many other local and regional visitor experience providers.

“The Seven Days With the Giant” campaign began four years ago and has become a popular foundation of our marketing strategy, drawing interest from avid outdoor adventure seekers. The program weaves our connection to the natural environment with our great urban culture and contributes to our vision to become regarded as Canada’s Best Outdoor City. This year, the program has expanded to showcase some of the exciting regional experiences beyond our city limits and utilizes some of North America’s most respected outdoor adventure media to attract avid travelers to our area.

Contest entry is available online at http://www.visitthunderbay.com/ beginning at 12 noon, Tuesday February 15, 2011 and ends at 12 Midnight, May 31, 2011.

For more information, email me @ ppepe@thunderbay.ca or call me @ (807) 625-3880

Promoting Motorcycle Touring into the US Midwest Market

2011-02-06T14:32:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, Tourism Thunder Bay, in partnership with the Thunder Bay chapter of the Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.)TM were promoting the upcoming "Thunder In the Bay" Provincial rally at the Minneapolis International Motorcycle Show.

This is a new marketing and promotional direction for Tourism Thunder Bay and the partnership with the owner's group has been essential to its success. Having riders at the booth answering questions gives the program a level of authenticity and allows for greater marketplace reach. The consumer uptake early in the weekend was overwhelming with interest, not only in the rally by Harley owners, but in touring the lake in general.

In addition to the event and city information, copies of the Circle Tour guide and Lake Superior Magazine's maps were hugely popular among the hundreds of avid motorcycle touring enthusiasts who stopped by to chat with us. In fact, Friday night alone saw a steady traffic jam in row 1100 just because people were stopped at the booth three deep to get more info on the event and route.

I want to send a huge shout out to John Trevisanutto, John Aiken and Susan Macey of the local Harley Owners Group who have been enthusiastically active ambassadors for the rally and the community. John's organization of volunteers to help promote the rally, the city and the touring route at the Minneapolis Show is greatly appreciated and it would not have rolled out so well without their volunteer contribution.

The rally itself, being held from July 28-30, will see upwards of eight hundred riders in the community and is expected to have an economic impact in excess of $275 000 for the city. Because riders will be travelling regionally to attend, or spending time at the front or tail end of the rally, an additional regional economic impact of some $200 000 will likely be seen by north shore Ontario and Minnesota communities.

Motorcycle touring presents one of the best potential new growth segments for Thunder Bay and every other community around the Lake Superior basin. The route, comprising some 1300 miles of some of the most scenic geography and interesting smaller communities is considered one of the continents top 10 driving routes and the north shore, one of Canada's top three motorcycle routes. Even the Globe and Mail has identified riding the North shore of Superior as one of one hundred things to do in a lifetime.

The motorcycle market is one that is a prime avid segment and they're the ones we want to work at attracting, both from the Canadian and US source markets. With close to 5.2 million US and 550 000 Canadians touring by motorcycle, its a segment worth capturing. This is a segment of higher than average income earners who have a passion for exploring and travel and they are more likely to keep travelling when the economy is tighter. While touring, they are more likely to generate a greater local and regional economic impact as they move from community to community, staying multiple overnights within a region, dining and exploring attractions.

The Ministry of Tourism has invested in travel motivational research - the all important demand generator stuff - and the studies are available on the ministry's website. Its even specifically broken down into the Canadian or US motorcycle markets.

For the city and coastal region, it's a segment that starts towards the end of May and extends to early October and while our urban motel occupancy has been hovering around 84% over the past summer, it still leaves about 300 hotel rooms available on average each evening, not to mention those in other communities around the lake. Promoting to the motorcycle market is a great way to fill the rest of the rooms. Furthermore, many motorcyclists travel in groups that can reach into the dozens or even hundreds of bikes, making this one of the emergent group travel markets.

While we are in the Minneapolis market promoting the rally specifically, a regional lake basin approach to product development and marketing to this specific segment is essential to the success of growing the market. It takes an understanding of what riders seek in a journey with respect to scenic viewscapes, interesting and well maintained roadways, regular refueling points and overnight accommodation spaced about 400-500 km apart. They also seek the comforts such as secure and covered overnight parking, wipe down cloths, fuel stops, restaurants within walking distance of accommodation, and other related conveniences that make them feel welcomed into a community.

Given discussions we've had with some of our other tourism partners around the lake and others planned in the coming months, we hope to see a more aggressive Lake Superior coastal touring route program develop over the following few years to take advantage of this important travel segment.

for more information on the 2011 Thunder In The Bay Provincial H.O.G. Rally, visit their website.

Vote Thunder Bay Destinations for Canada’s Great Places Contest

2011-02-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

Canadians across the country are now competing to put their favourite location on the map in the Great Places in Canada Contest sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Planners. Three Thunder Bay locations are in the running including, The Sleeping Giant, Thunder Bay’s Waterfront and the Current River neighbourhood. Residents are encouraged to go to www.GreatPlacesInCanada.com and vote for the Thunder Bay locations, or nominate their preferred local destinations, and encourage others to vote.

The competition is open to everyone – just go to www.GreatPlacesInCanada.com where you can nominate, write about, and post images of the place that inspires you. And by making a nomination, you’ll be entered into a draw for prizes. Votes will be tallied in real time to make it easy to track the leading locations.

“It would be fantastic to see one of Thunder Bay’s spectacular destinations win,” said Mayor Keith Hobbs. “I encourage people to take a few seconds to vote and demonstrate their hometown pride to make Thunder Bay a leader in this friendly competition. It will be an exciting contest as people enlist support for their entries and communities compete with one another.”

To vote for the Sleeping Giant, visit the page directly at http://www.cip-icu.ca/greatplaces/en/place.asp?id=3461

Nominating and voting will close March 25, 2011. A panel of judges will then select the finalists in late April, and the winners will be announced in May. Each winning location will receive a plaque, presented to the local mayor or reeve, and winning nominators will also be awarded.
For more information, visit www.GreatPlacesInCanada.com.

Canada' Great Outdoors Program Partnership Continues into Chicago this Year

2011-01-09T15:55:00.000-08:00

This Thursday January 13, we're going to be at the Pheasant Run All Canada Show in St Charles Illinois to promote a new enhanced partnership with OTMPC around their "Canada's Great Outdoors" tactical strategy promoting the northwest's iconic outdoor experiences into the U.S. midwest market.

Last year, we partnered up with Porter, OTMPC, Thunder Bay Airport Authority and others to align with Canada's Great Outdoors with our own "Canada's Great Outdoors Begins in Canada's Great Outdoor City" program and web portal landing site to encourage US midwest anglers and soft outdoor adventure seekers to consider Thunder Bay as their hub and to consider the convenience of flying into the region versus driving.

This year, through our RTO transition mandate, we've expanded the partnership, taking a lead on the program with Tourism Kenora and NOTO, and input from Sunset Country and NOSTA, to keep building upon the "Canada's Great Outdoors" brand, positioning our region as the best outdoor adventure destination in the country. Its a great partnership by numerous organizations that understand that in the northwest, we have common experiences and common markets, making it essential that we collaborate on a regional level versus working in our traditional organizational silos, often based on geo political boundaries. That is what the RTO is about. Leveraging each other's equity and resources to present the region to the consumer most effectively.

The All Canada Show is only one channel and a good chance to meet with regional tourist operators, conduct some research with respect to the experiences offered by other regions and build some awareness of regional collaboration in an RTO world. Other tactical channels of this campaign will roll out between the end of January and end of May, 2011, primarily into the Chicago area wish a focus on avid outdoor adventure markets.

Globe and Mail Profile's the Sleeping Giant Loppet...and Our Nordic Culture

2011-01-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

building and maintaining a high profile in the travel media is a significant element of our overall marketing strategy and we're off to a fantastic start this year, with three travel media requests coming in on our first week back to the office after Christmas break.

The Globe and Mail had a short piece in their online weekend edition this past weekend, profiling the Sleeping Giant Loppet, Kamview and Lappe as part of our nordic culture, including favorite Apre' ski traditions including - you guessed it -the Hoito and Kangas Sauna.

The bundling of the core ski experience with the northern European culinary and cultural components is an example of the visitor experiences being picked up by our media partners continuously now, building strength on our outdoors focus while presenting a well rounded visitor experience as well. The skiing is the experiential driver, while the urban components, woven into the presentation, fill out the visitor experience and demonstrate that urban economic impacts are achieved by an tourism strategy that focuses on our connection to our natural environment.

Following on this weekend's highly successful Haywood U23 World Cross Country ski Trails, our reputation as a winter playground for the avid outdoor enthusiast is gaining steam. Winters in Canada attract a very specific avid outdoor adventure seeker and over the years, we've gained more insight into who they are, what they want and where they live. Its still a niche market but its one willing to travel farther for an iconic high quality experience. Just ask the winners of this year's Winter Win contest, who are from British Columbia.

Proof positive we are always deliberately building upon our community's reputation as Canada's Best Outdoor City.

Thunder Bay Hosts Noram 2011 Cross Country Ski Event

2011-01-04T18:28:00.001-08:00

Thunder Bay continues to show off its stellar international reputation for hosting world class events with the sports community's latest achievement, the Hayward Noram Junior/U23 World cross country ski championships. The event is also encompassing the World Sr Distance Trials, Tech Sprint Series, Canada Games Trials and the Ontario Cup # Two Races. All in all, this is the one stop for competitive cross country skiing this season.

Over 320 elite skiers from around the world are in the city for over a week training and racing out at the Lappe Ski Centre. In total, including coaches, trainers and support staff, over 500 people are here for the event. We've estimated the total direct and indirect economic impact to be over $680 000 for the community and region.

The organizers, representing both the Big Thunder Nordic and Lappe Nordic Clubs, have done a spectacular job at putting together an event that has attracted broad sponsorship and a significant volunteer base to coordinate and execute a flawless event. The City of Thunder Bay is a Gold sponsor of the event, supporting it through the Event Development Grant. One of our tourism partners, the Prince Arthur Hotel and Waterfront Suites, is the host hotel.

This is also a great sport event in that it draws on the principles of sustainable tourism. Being a silent sport that has a intimate connection to the natural environment around it, embracing sustainability makes perfect sense. It is also great to see event organizers develop programs that support our view that even sport tourism events connect to our "Canada's Best Outdoor City" positioning and sustainable tourism principles.

The local artisan community has been engaged in the creation of the various prizes and the event has been certified by Ecosuperior as a "green event" by promoting recycling, reducing litter, excessive packaging, composting, and a reduction in paper consumption through online registration.

Welcome to all the participants from around the world and best wishes for a successful week.

Ministry of Tourism and Culture Unveils New Website.

2011-01-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

Just prior to Christmas, 2010, the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture rolled out their new website to reflect the merging of the tourism and culture portfolios.

Tourism is a moving portfolio and it's policy home, at all levels of government in most jurisdictions around the globe tends to bounce around. Sometimes its a stand alone and often, its merged with Parks, Culture, Economic Development and other related portfolios. Currently, its merger with Culture reflects the important role cultural tourism such as historical attractions, culinary, and performing arts play in the overall tourism industry in Ontario. I never get too hung up on its alignment and merger with other portfolios so long as the tools and resources are there at the appropriate levels to move our industry forward.

Because of the merger, the new website takes an additional click to get to the real meat of the tourism industry information. However, once there, the information resource selection is a little more streamlined and all the relevant information the industry needs to make most major and minor business development and marketing decisions are still right there.

A tool within the site we use extensively is the TREIM model, an online customizable research tool that allows event and attractions organizers estimate the economic impacts of their activities. Its one of the main reports we run for every major event being planned with our involvement or advice.

There are some quick links and some new customized research options now available to assist regions, census and metropolitan areas understand their main geographic visitor markets a little more quickly, albeit with some gaps, particularly with respect to the US markets. I was having some fun over the Christmas holidays playing with the new Geotravel stats tool and if you take the time to understand what the data means, its easy to apply to your own operational decisions.

Unfortunately, the regional tourism profiles, one the old tourism sites best "quick reference" features, is currently not linked up and hopefully that gets sorted out quickly as its been one of most trusted quick sources of information when providing an overview of the economic impacts of tourism, something all of us in the industry have to continuously educate our communities on. However, there is no lack of relevant local and regional data there in the meantime.

For anyone in the regional tourism industry, the Ministry's site should be bookmarked on your computer, (right alongside this one, of course) for quick reference. Its probably one of the industry's best tourism research tools in Canada.

Trans Canada Trail Ontario Retains New Trail Intern

2011-01-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

Tourism Thunder Bay is part of a regional community partnership working with the Trans Canada Trail Organization to connect Northwestern Ontario's vast geography through multi use trail development. This is an exciting regional partnership that has evolved over the past two years and demonstrates the importance of collaboration and the tourism values that trail infrastructure can bring to the region.

One project is looking at the abandoned Kinghorn rail line between Thunder Bay and Nipigon for conversion to a multi season, multi use trail that will improve local recreational and tourism opportunities.

The second project is connecting the trail from Thunder Bay to the Manitoba Border, using the historical water and portage routes. As with the King horn, the project aims to look at improving local recreational opportunities but also identify new tourism opportunities for adventure seekers.

One need only drive a short distance into Northern Minnesota from here to see the expansive trail networks that exist and in particular, the well developed trails linking many of the Lake Superior lodges and communities that are full of cyclists, walkers, horseback riders and cross country skiers.

Trans Canada Trail Ontario has announced that a Trail Intern, Shawn Karsten, has been hired to coordinate the feasibility study on the Kinghorn project and help coordinate contractor efforts with respect to the water trail inventory and mapping.

Shawn comes to us from the North of Superior Tourism Association and is a graduate of Confederation College, holding a diploma in Business Marketing, Human Resource Management and Business Administration. Shawn is well known to many in the regional tourism industry and will hit the ground running on January 10th, working from Tourism Thunder Bay's Administrative offices and the Township of Nipigon municipal office.

Building Business In the U.S. Market With a High Canadian Dollar.

2011-01-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

The Canadian dollar opened 2011 on parity with the U.S.

It wasn't too many years ago when our dollar was worth about 70 cents on the US dollar and the Canadian tourism industry milked it's low value as a key element of its marketing strategies and Northwestern Ontario was no different. The heart of the sales pitch was "a Canadian vacation is 30% off" or whatever reasonably safe exchange difference could be printed.

We used the value difference as a crutch for a long time.

In a world where our currency is on par and at some points, above par, we have to shift to the quality of the experience and speak to the consumer's desire to have that experience. While we are focusing a lot more on the domestic markets, the U.S. market and its approximately 80 million valid passport holders is only a forty five minute drive away from us or a flight time of a little over a couple of hours.

Know Your Client. It amazes me how many operators don't keep tabs on their client demographics or the trends and shifts that occur right before their eyes. Where are they from? Who do they travel wish? What is their profession or income level? How did they hear about you? What are their special requests? What do they like about your experience that keeps them coming back? Client relation management is easy to do and reasonably priced customer relationship management software programs help you manage client relations by tracking and reporting information back to you to help you make better marketing and product enhancement decisions.

Focus on the avids. There are large segments of the motivated travel markets that want the experience and price will not necessarily feature prominently as a deciding factor. Whether its a trophy fly in angling trip, a motorcycle or roadster tour around Lake Superior or kayaking the Rossport Islands, there are a lot of travellers that place a value on the experience beyond the currency difference. Researching these markets is not that difficult. The Ministry of Tourism publishes travel motivator studies on most major avid segments and that is a good starting point. These avids belong to clubs in their home communities, chat on experiential forums and read print or digital media specific to their interests.

Just remember, when engaging potential guests in on line forums, always request the permission of the moderator. Some forums frown on commercial activities, some have areas set up specifically for commercial activities and some would reasonably expect some financial sponsorship in exchange for promoting your business activity

Reconnect with your existing and former clients and have a conversation with them. It takes less investment to retain clients than attract new ones. Reconnecting can be as simple as a news letter, sending them a birthday email or offering them value added incentives to keep returning. You can offer a direct cash discount or value added extras "free boat rental with cabin stay, free breakfast or some other promotion that keeps them loyal.

Be careful with the cash discounts as they may, if accepted in great volumes, have a impact on your operating revenues and may, in the future, make it trickier to bring your rates back into line. Value added additions often don't always cost you the full value to provide but still give the guest additional value and a sense of being appreciated for their business.

A lot of travellers want value and value should not always be confused with "cheap".

Quality is easier to sell. I've said ad nauseum over the years that high quality experiences and products are easier to market. Now is the time to look at your operation from the outside. Its human nature for us to become complacent when we see something the same way every day so bring in a third party or better yet, survey your guests. Look at the physical appearance or first impression your operation gives. Is it clean, well kept, safe, secure and inviting? Do your facilities look and smell clean? Does everything work? How comfortable and crisp is the bedding? I could go on forever but you get the message.

Review your experience, appearance and customer service standards through on line forums like Trip Advisor, Travelocity of Restaurantica and see what customers are saying. Use that as a starting point for making improvements. Look to the Ontario Tourism Education Corporation as a starting point to find training programs to enhance your and your staff''s customer service skills. Acting on consumer feedback, both positive and negative, is essential to keeping quality standards high. Engage in the online discussions and follow up with the sources of comments to let them - and the rest of the online reading world- know that you've taken it seriously and acted on their comments.

Hopefully, as you start the new year, you'll reflect on just the few basic pointers I've mentioned. You could already be doing some of this without giving it much thought or this might give you incentive to start doing things differently. At the end of the day, if every tourism partner does one thing to improve the calibre of their experience, the entire reputation of our local tourism economy benefits.

A Time to Reflect on Tourism Resolutions for 2011.

2011-01-01T10:34:00.000-08:00

Its New years Day and I'm sitting in my den, looking out over the "Big Lake" with a coffee relaxing. And by relaxing, I mean putting my thoughts and resolutions into this digital space.

First off, Happy New Year to all of our tourism partners locally, provincially, nationally and internationally. 2010 was a whirlwind year with lots of challenges and thankfully many more rewards and as we take this long weekend breather before diving into a new regional tourism management world in 2011, its good to reflect on our accomplishments and plan for the future.

My main professional new years resolution is, after much thought, pretty simple. To build new partnerships that help us deliver the visitor experiences consumers want.

For me, the past week has not been entirely spend eating and socializing. With RTO work continuing through the holidays, seeing our 2011 Thunder Bay Visitor Experience Magazine and e-zine off to production, responding to media requests and coordinating upcoming outdoors tactical strategies with OTMPC, our year end and the coinciding deadlines for the year's tactical plans make for a busy time. But it never really feels like work, however.

Its also a time to reflect on my last four years in my current role and how enjoyable it has been to be part of a dedicated corporate team always moving forward to make this community great. Given my passion over the past decade for bringing entrepreneurial values into the public service economic development environment, I can honestly say that its been very rewarding to see that bureaucratic and entrepreneurial values can coexist in the public sector. As a department, my team has ushered in a consumer research and experientially focused planning model, adopted a whole new vision and for the local tourism industry through positioning the community as Canada's Best Outdoor City and embraced regional collaboration beyond our city limits to speak to consumers and tell stories that excite them.

We've done all this as an industry by taking calculated risks and pushing limits and challenging the status quo. Its been a four year adrenaline rush.

For 2011, we will continue to steer the ship on its course, building greater equity into the core "Superior By Nature" brand, moving ever closer to the "Canada's Best Outdoor City" position in the market place and everything we do will reflect that vision by new and creative means that weave our connection to our natural environment with our urban cultural and culinary fibres.

The coming months are going to be amazing, if not insanely busy for our tourism department. We'll be promoting the city and region's experiences in the Toronto, Winnipeg, Chicago and Minneapolis markets, we'll be launching the fourth generation of our Seven Days With the Giant experiential leisure program, generating greater cruise shipping industry awareness for the Lake Superior basin and continuing to build the RTO framework that will change the way we collaborate and communicate. We'll be rolling out an enhanced Meeting and Convention and Incentive Travel tactical creative plan sometime mid year and will continue to increase our digital presence by engaging the latest trends in creative digital social channels.

Most importantly, we're going to continue having fun getting to where we want to go as a tourism economy.

To all reading this, enjoy the day with family and friends and I encourage everyone in the tourism industry to adopt your own professional resolution for the coming year with respect to what you are going to contribute to growing the tourism economy. If we started writing them all down, I'm pretty positive it would paint 2011 as a challenging yet rewarding year for the tourism industry.

Looking Back on a Great 2010 - 10 Big Things That Defined our Tourism Industry

2010-12-28T09:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I made my predictions for our local tourism economy for 2011. Today, I want to reflect on the past year and some of the high points with respect to the City's tourism economy. The good news stories came from many sources and many partners and demonstrates how everyone has a role to play in growing the industry.

1. The Regional Tourism Organization Framework is perhaps the most significant and fundamental change to how we manage the tourism industry in Northern Ontario in the past 40 years. The Ministry of Tourism responded swiftly to the recommendations spelled out in the Ontario Tourism Competitiveness Study a year earlier. The first order of business was the implementation of the thirteen new tourism regions and $65 million Province wide in annual transition funds being made available to our industry if we all played nice in the sandbox together. It also meant we all begin focusing on the consumer and not our individual organizational empires. There have been far too many organizations duplicating each others efforts and this new regional approach to tourism management will see more financial and human resources aligning and coordinating marketing, product development, skills development and investment attraction to bring more experiences to market that consumers seek.

2. Sport Tourism continued to thrive in Thunder Bay in 2010, with the city hosting a number of Provincial, National and International events. Perhaps the one that received the most attention was the World Junior Baseball Championships that brought over $1 million in economic impact to the community, leveraged sport tourism capital investments and solidified our reputation for hosting word class events flawlessly. However, it was much more than that. It was the Cavendish Cup Canadian Men's University Hockey Championships, it was the North American Ice Yacht Races and it was our city's very own home grown fall sport tourism investment in the inaugural Thunder Bay Marathon - Miles with the Giant. Thousands of local residents all made these things happen.

3. Hotel performance. With summer occupancies hitting close to 84% and strong spring and fall performance as well, we saw our annual hotel performance jump significantly over the past year by over 6%. It was leisure, corporate and sport all growing simultaneously to feed the accommodation sector. This resulted in a number of properties undertaking massive capital renovation programs to modernize their guest's experiences as well.

4. Airport Performance - The arrival of Porter to Thunder Bay in 2009 helped improve an already strong air corridor with Toronto - and the rest of the world. However, the summer and fall of 2010 saw airport passenger traffic records shatter as more passengers utilized Thunder Bay Airport. This really drove home the role the Airport authority plays as a economic development driver in the community and how important air connectivity is for Thunder Bay to position itself as a regional hub for leisure, corporate, sport, education and medical tourism markets.

5. We continued to see our cruise shipping industry grow with more capital investments made in our Pool 6 Cruise Terminal, notably landscaping, security and dredging improvements. After declaring in 2009 at Seatrade's Cruise Shipping Miami that "Lake Superior was as exotic as the Galapagos", interest in our area continues to build from the international cruise shipping and touring industry. We are still in our infancy with this but given the growing interest from north shore communities to help grow expedition cruising and the catalyst potential of the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area, Lake Superior can certainly be the next big expedition and discovery cruising hot spot.

6. Thunder Bay and the bigger picture. We're a gateway to some of the planet's best outdoor experiences - angling, kayaking, birding, wildlife viewing, hunting, skiing, back country snow mobiling, sailing....you name it. In January we ramped up our gateway positioning and regional partnership philosophy to launch "Canada's Great Outdoors begins in Canada's Great Outdoor City", a half million dollar campaign targeting Illinois with OTMPC, Thunder Bay International Airport Authority, Porter Airlines and dozens of local and regional outdoor tourism partners. The premise was simple. Give consumers information on how to get to their trophy experience effortlessly and maximize the opportunities for our urban tourism partners to be part of their experience through accommodation, food and outfitting and supply.

7. 2010 was a great year for travel media exposure for the City. From KSTP's great online and television series on the Gems of Thunder Bay to having our winter experiences featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, sailing in the Toronto Star, profiled on the Ron James Show, and Mantracker filming two upcoming episodes here, our name continued to resonate with consumers at every turn. We call ourselves Canada's Best Outdoor City for a reason.

8. Waterfront Redevelopment. Construction at Prince Arthur's Landing was in full swing in 2010, reclaiming and transforming a nice but massively under performing public space into a spectacular world class waterfront. We live on the world's largest freshwater lake and the fact that until now, we never fully connected ourselves to it properly or celebrated our connection to this huge part of our natural environment was, to be polite, unfortunate. Once completed, hundreds of people will live and stay in our downtown waterfront district daily on a year around basis, better cultural and recreational facilities will abound, new unique gallery space will welcome visitors and expanded and improved marina facilities will bring more local and visiting boaters to the waterfront.

9. Preliminary public consultations began on the potential to develop a new multi purpose facility in the city to replace the aging and capacity limited Fort William Gardens. An investment in strategic capital infrastructure that increases our potential to attract larger conventions and sport tourism events will benefit the majority of our local tourism industry. Stay tuned in 2011 as more research is undertaken on this potential new tourism catalyst.

10. Sustainable Tourism Embraced. You all know that despite my love for old cars (I think of it as recycling), I am a huge advocate for making sustainable tourism a key element of our community's core tourism values statement. In 2010, we saw a new partnership with regional municipal economic development partners and the Trans Canada Trail organization to begin the investigative process of converting the old CN Kinghorn line to a new multi season destination trail. The community saw the development of new bike lanes, 24 km of newly paved recreation trails, new locally themed culinary attractions like the Growing Season emerge and our Farmer's Market continue to grow and welcome an expanding visitor segment.

Here's looking to see these ten milestones continue to grow upon their successes and redefine who we are as a tourism economy in the coming year.

Nine Local Tourism Predictions for 2011

2010-12-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

With 2010 quickly making its way into our rear view mirrors, we've begun to deconstruct the past year's performance, looking at the emergent trends, decreases and shifts of the past year to predict what lies ahead of us.

Here's my predictions for the 2011 tourism year for the Thunder Bay area.

1. Partnerships are king in 2011. with over $1.5 million in new Provincial regional tourism funds available to the tourism industry of the Northwest for partnership based initiatives, communities, industry and regional tourism organizations are going to have to focus on experiential tourism initiatives versus the old destination based models that saw a lot of duplication of marketing and product development efforts that frankly, only confused the consumer. We're going to be working a lot more together as industry and communities.

2. We're going to hear the words "product development" a lot more. Good quality relevant experiences are easier to market and in our new regional tourism model, product development, capacity building and investment attraction are more important than marketing. Now is the time to refresh aging product, find new markets and build new visitor experiences people actually want to travel for.

3. Continued modest gains in the domestic markets. The Canadian economy has remained stable in the past year and we're going to continue to see Ontario and Manitoba lead our domestic markets, primarily in the summer leisure segment. They will be drawn here primarily to visit friends and family, touring, angling, hunting, and soft adventure. We're going to continue a strong focus on the domestic trade.

4. We're going to continue to see a shift in the US travel demographics towards the touring and to a lesser degree soft adventure segments. The US economy is still tender and the U.S. midwest is no exception. This tender economy will have its most significant impact on the tradtional angling and hunting markets.

Touring is the emergent trend in US travel to our region and those seeking to explore the lake basin will continue to grow, following urban gains made in 2010 around this segment. There are 75 million plus passport holders in the US and looking at motorcycle, auto (AAA and specialty auto sport groups) and RV clubs will be a smart investment for all of us in the industry. The north Lake Superior coastline is one of Canada's top 3 scenic motorcycle destinations.

Don't write off angling, however. Its still the single largest tourism segment for the entire region and the experience here, particularly the remote trophy experience, is pure world class Canadian iconic wilderness and this segment can flourish by investing in reaching new markets domesticaly, in the US and globally. Also, remember how many hundreds of thousands of our US friends are serving overseas? As they start returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, they and their family members will want relaxing experiences and we could see that segment play a role in rebuilding US traffic to the area beginning in 2011. In the meantime, the angling segment should look east and west - GTA and Alberta - for new angling markets as well as affluent US avids outside of the traditional border state markets.

5. MC and IT. We'll see continued strong performance in corporate travel to the city, largely driven by the mining and health sciences sectors and increased air corridor options such as Porter. We're going to see the awareness of the city as a business hub continue to be seen be meeting planners as a advantage for those seeking something out of the ordinary. Our corporate segment will continue to be dominated by the domestic market. Canadian organizations and firms are travelling for conferences again after some contraction in 2008 and 2009 and they are hungry for unique destinations. Cue our "Unconventional Convention" destination positioning.

6. Sport tourism will continue to play a healthy role in our tourism economy with traffic similar to 2010. This is easy to predict because a lot of our events are secured 2 years out. The World U23 cross country ski time trails and Ontario Winter Special Olympics will bring a welcome increase to local hotels in January (generally a tough month in accommodation sectors)

If our winter stays cold and snowless, we can expect a shot at hosting the North American Ice Yacht Championships again as we did at the eleventh hour in 2010. $155 000 in local economic impacts were generated in an event we had 48 hours notice of earlier this year as over 100 racers scrambled to find clear ice. We'd love to welcome them all back.

7. Group travel. What can I say about this other than we are rethinking what group travel is in recent years and a lot of the potential growth in this segment ties into the trends in touring by looking at groups "beyond the bus" Motorcycle groups, sports car clubs have the potential to drive this segment's future and our hosting of the 2011 Ontario Harley Owners Group will see over 800 avid motorcyclists descend on the city in late July, bringing a lot of attention to the spectacular touring route around the lake. This could very well become a catalyst for an annual motorcycle gathering in the city. Now, lets start adding up the corvette, porsche, miata, vintage clubs around Canada and the US midwest who travel in groups and you can see where the potential lies.

However, there are also thousands of special interest clubs around North America - be it canoe, hiking, birding or skiing-looking for group excursion destinations positioned around an experience of common interest. The nice thing is that these groups are easily reached through social media channels.

While we'll only be seeing two cruise ship visits in 2011, compared to ten in 2010, the C Columbus is larger than we've seen in the past two years and total visitor impacts will be approximately the same.

Motor coach travel is still in the mix and we will continue to see traffic. One of the potential growth areas with this segment ties into the expected growth of the Chinese market and I predict we're begin to see more trans Canada motor coach packaged tours than recent years as this new market wants to explore Canada's geography, bookended by Vancouver and Toronto due to their air connectivity and large Chinese communities.

8. Sustainable Tourism is going to be embraced by more consumers and more industry partners. local culinary and cultural attractions that give visitors an authentic experience are only growing in demand. Keeping in mind that the definition of sustainable tourism is "the promotion of experiences that conserve the environment and bring economic benefits to local populations", there is no reason why every single tourism operator in the region shouldn't embrace some level of sustainability in their operation. Expect to see a green touring program evolving in the next 12 months.

9. Social Media. Yeah, its been around for the past 4 years but digital media and two way conversations will continue to dominate our marketing and communications strategies with up to 1/2 of our media programs being delivered electronically in 2011. Expect to see more content generated online to feed the search engines. My advice to tourism partners not using digital social channels in 2011? Call an realtor.

10. We're going to have fun doing what we do and share our positive attitude with our clients and guests. I've been privileged to work with some of the best in the local tourism industry in the past 4 years. These are people who are passionate, fun and collaborative. As an industry, we've weathered some pretty significant environmental challenges in the past few years and our 2010 performance showed we overcome them with creativity and entrepreneurship and a lot of camaraderie. We're going to be positive, innovative and self confident in 2011. Remember, Success begets success.

RTO Development Continues to Build Regional Support

2010-12-23T13:27:00.000-08:00

The Regional Tourism Organization framework continues to develop throughout the Province and Region 13, the area encompassing most of Northern Ontario, is no exception.

The regional approach to tourism in Ontario is a long overdue change in thinking and reflects the need for the industry to begin to collaborate, coordinate and align with one another and the Provincial strategy to maximize resources and deliver services that have the consumer in mind. There have simply been far too many independent tourism organizations duplicating each other's efforts and at the end of the day, not really using their given resources effectively in reaching consumers.

What I personally like about the regional approach is two fold. It reduces the duplication and silos created in the past among organizations and it focuses on the entire management side of the tourism industry. The four pillars include marketing, product development, capacity building and investment attraction. There is more to tourism than marketing. Its about making educated research driven decisions that match product to the consumers needs and desires. This regional process begins that trans formative journey.

As many know, Thunder Bay is one of 19 signatories to the Region 13 Transition Plan and I am the executive lead for region 13C, Northwestern Ontario, working alongside Tom Pearson (Lodge operator and Sunset Country President), Don Pearl (North of Superior Tourism), Heather Paterson (Tourism Kenora) and Harold Lohn (Lodge operator and Northern Committee member)

We've been busy working on the draft bylaws, terms of reference for the regional strategic plan and solicitation of priority projects. As has been previously announced, of the $65 million in annual transition funding for Ontario, $4.2 million is earmarked for region 13 and $1.554 million for 13C, the region stretching from White River to the Manitoba Boarder and from the US Border to Hudson's Bay. This is a massive territory with dozens of communities and thousands of tourism stake holders. Reaching out to everyone in the past 6 months has not been a quick or easy task but we're making our way around.

To date, we've received approximately two dozen projects ranging from marketing to product development and capacity building. Some are under way and some are in the planning stages. One of the first successes of the transition process however, has little do to with any one specific process but rather, the fact that it has communities in the northwest opening up discussions with each other more than at any other time in my memory of the industry. We're collaborating more, sharing information and resources and looking for ways to capitalize on each other's strengths to reach new markets.

We've established several online communications tools to help the industry keep pace with the process as we move towards the establishment of the permanent office and inaugural board of directors. The Transition team website, RTO13.com and twitter.com/rto13 are up and running and provide meeting minutes, transition information and other relevant information to help the tourism industry understand the process.

Bringing Sustainability to the Culinary Industry Helps Raise our Standard

2010-12-19T19:36:00.000-08:00

Growing a tourism economy begins with establishing a higher standard for ourselves.

For me, raising Thunder Bay's standard includes sustainability. Sustainability goes hand in hand with our vision to position Thunder Bay as Canada's Best Outdoor City around a strong "Superior by Nature" image.

I've spoken before about sustainability, both in financial and environmental terms and both are equally important. The financial sustainability is what the industry desires and goes to what I spoke of a couple of weeks back about our need to redefine what an attraction is and should be in an accountable environment. However, when we talk about the city's tourism image, its the environmental sustainability and its connectivity to the brand that consumer sees....and folks, that's who has to see us first.

The definition of sustainable tourism is simple. The heart of it is "to promote visitor experiences that conserve the environment while bringing positive economic impacts to local economies." I've said it before and I've repeated it again. Its not that we have to give up promoting the visitor experiences we are known for but about doing so in the most environmentally responsible methods we can.

I spend a lot of time, seven days a week, looking for tourism industry news, looking at best practices and searching for new and innovative and provocative ways to promote the city to the target markets that match our visitor experiences.

Today I came across a fantastic online video showcasing the sustainability philosophy of Arthur Potts Dawson, a British restaurateur, where he discusses achieving sustainability in the culinary industry. Our city's culinary culture has blossomed in recent years and has become woven intimately into all we promote. We have some great examples of sustainable culinary experiences in the City. Growing Season Juice Collective, the Thunder Bay Country Market and the Thunder Oak Gouda Farm are just some that provide culinary experiences based on locally produced ingredients and create local employment. We need more, however. In fact, what if our entire local culinary industry embraces environmental sustainability to some practical extent?

I'm not going to say much more about the video or topic than the fact that it was absolutely enlightening. Watch it for yourself and if you're in the local culinary industry, you'll to come away enlightened too.

Thunder Bay Being Promoted at the 2010 Toronto Motorcycle Show

2010-12-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

2011 is going to be a big year for the motor cycle touring market in the Thunder Bay area.

Thunder Bay has been chosen to host the 2011 Ontario Harley Owner's Group (H.O.G.) Rally.

Organized by the Thunder Bay Chapter of the Ontario Harley Owner's Group, the event, aptly named "Thunder in the Bay", will take place from July 28-30 and is expected to see hundreds of enthusiasts descend on the community to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow riders and experience some of North America's best scenic touring routes while getting here.

This weekend, local event organizers are at the Toronto Motorcycle Show promoting the event to Harley Davidson enthusiasts in the GTA area, encouraging them to plan their summer road trip to Thunder Bay and register early for a chance to win free accommodation at the event's host hotel, the Victoria Inn, during the rally.

We're thrilled to be helping out with the event and visitors to this weekend's show will see our Thunder Bay visuals around the booth and be able to pick up a copy of our Experience magazine, promoting all there is to see and do in and around the community while they are here.

Also, a staple at this year's show are our friends from the Algoma Kinnewabi Travel Association, promoting the Lake Superior and North Channel areas to riders. For many Southern Ontario and Michigan touring riders, they will likely travel through that region to reach us and Carol and company from AKTA do a great job promoting the region and are progressive thinkers with respect to the regional approach to visitor attraction.

Motorcycle touring has seen significant growth in recent years and sales statistics on new bikes in Canada demonstrates the popularity of this form of transportation. We live on the shore of the world's greatest lake, ringed by one of North America's most scenic ribbons of highway. While promotion has been increasing in recent years, we are only really scratching the surface to reach out and attract new riders to the region. A big part of increasing awareness is the role local enthusiasts and clubs play in hosting rallies and events and promoting the region by speaking the language of the motorcycle enthusiast.

Motorcycle tourers travel light, like to stop often to take in scenic views and attractions and embrace comfortable accommodation, great food and safe and secure parking for their bikes. Our goal is that this event galvanizes the Thunder Bay motorcycle and tourism community to continue to work together to develop some sort of annual event and general tactical strategy that will increase opportunities for accommodation, culinary and cultural attractions to grow new markets.

If you're in the Toronto area this weekend, stop by the Toronto Motorcycle Show and look for the great folks at the H.O.G. display. They'll whet your appetite for planning your 2011 summer road trip to the Lake Superior area.

(Harley Davidson and H.O.G. are registered trademarks)

Maximizing the Unconventional Convention Experience

2010-12-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

The convention market is a significant contributor to Thunder Bay's tourism economy, particularly driving our accommodation, car rental and airline partners throughout the fall winter and spring when leisure markets are traditionally slower.

When we began our strategic Renascence several years ago to position Thunder Bay as Canada's Best Outdoor City, we looked at the challenge of integrating the convention and sport tourism segments into that brand position. Marketing those two segments in Canada can be a very generic process for most communities our size and its important to find a way to stand out.

We have woven the nucleus of the local convention industry - meeting and accommodation space- with the connection to the natural environment around the community to create the "unconventional convention destination"

Its about communicating to convention planners, the plethora of cultural and recreational activities that exist in and around the community that create exceptional value added opportunities to create unique convention itineraries. Its about getting participants away from the power point presentations, out of the meeting rooms and exploring the community, as either part of the meeting itself or "personal time"

In testing our new direction back in 2008, we created a series of value added side trips for participants in the city for the Canadian Armed Forces SAREX Operations (Search and Rescue) They could take a side trip to the Fort, play a round of golf, go kayaking or charter fishing on Lake Superior during some structured downtime built into the conference. It got conference participants out into the community, exploring cultural and recreational attractions and maximizing both positive reflections of the city and economic impacts. I still hear from participants of that conference that it was the most memorable for them because of that feature.

It can be a side trip to the Fort or the art gallery, a dog sled excursion, an hour of trying cross country skiing, salmon fishing, a flight seeing tour, some golf or a reception at a unique local venue integrating local culinary icons and live local entertainment.

Its also about capitalizing on unique local meeting spaces including Fort William Historical Park, the college and University, and the Hazelwood Lake Centre that are enveloped by the natural environment around them.

For conference planners, its easy to integrate side trips to local galleries, cultural attractions and our parks. For individual conference participants wanting to slip out after supper and explore on their own, its essential that they have the information in their hands to find what they want. We provide over 30 000 visitor magazines and delegate bags to conference participants annually but there is also an opportunity for hotel front desk staff and taxi drivers to know the range of experiences constantly available in the city and this can be achieved by keeping the visitor magazine in the cab or having our website bookmarked on the hotel front desk computers.

The bottom line is that the convention market for Thunder Bay does not need to exclude our cultural and natural resources and in fact, integrating them into our strategy and that of local conference planners gives us a competitive advantage to winning bids and attracting corporate events that leave participants with a more positive impression of just how sophisticated and eclectic our urban environment has evolved into over the past five years.

If you want to know more about making your convention bid that much more competitive or want to discuss ways your tourism business can play a role in growing our convention industry, contact our Meeting and Convention Coordinator, Rose Marie Tarnowski @ rtarnowski@thunderbay.ca

Star Tribune Offers Great Insights in Thunder Bay's Winter Experiences

2010-12-05T09:34:00.001-08:00

Earned media exposure in key experiential and geographic markets is a enormously critical part of positioning the city's tourism brand and we've recently scored more great Minnesota based media.

This weekend's Minneapolis Star Tribune travel section includes a great article on Thunder Bay's outdoor winter experiences with a focus on both the downhill and cross country ski venues as well as the local dog sledding scene. A second article, entitled "Thunder Bay Geography Lesson" explains the city's location with respect to the Twin Cities and a bit of back ground. This double helping of media coverage in both the print and online editions of the Star Tribune, continues to align with our positioning of Thunder Bay as "Canada's Best Outdoor City"

We've got some great winter experiential product being developed in the city in the last few years, catering primarily to niche outdoor enthusiasts, the group that will travel, are not turned away from snow and cold and want to experience something authentic and unique.

While the U.S. economy is still somewhat tender, the mid west remains a vitally important market to Thunder Bay. With over 30 million US residents, 8.5 million of which hold passports, living within a 12 hour drive of Thunder Bay, its a market we intend to keep pursuing with well researched, strategic focused programs speaking directly to those travellers looking for the experiences we excel in offering.

Snow Mobiling Season is Just Around the Corner. Are You Ready?

2010-11-30T17:50:00.001-08:00

The Thunder Bay Adventure Trails snowmobile club has released its 2010/2011 trail map for the city and area, signaling that the sledding season is just around the corner for the region. The earlier snows and freezing weather points to a potentially longer season than in the past few years.

The maps and snow mobile permits are available at the following snow mobile dealers in the city

Excalibur Motorcycle Works

North Country Cycle and Sports

J and J Sports

Smith's RV

Four Seasons Recreation

Understanding the trail network and permitting process is something those in the visitor services and accommodation industry should be paying attention to. We should all be able to answer visitor inquiries about the trails and give them the information that will encourage them to choose our area.

Contrary to perception, there is still a market for enthusiasts looking for spectacular wilderness riding and while low snow levels and some regressive trail corridor policies courtesy of the Ministry of Transportation have eliminated trail access through the city itself, riders do not need to travel far from the community to stage from and ultimately enjoy hundreds of kilometers of trails along the north shore and west of the city. In fact, sled trailering services exist to help sledders get through the gap.

Travelling sledders often travel in groups and while they are out on the trail all day, they want good food and good accommodation. Some will use Thunder Bay as a daily staging ground and some will ride town to town on a multi day excursion.

Its also important that the tourism industry come together to work on trail connectivity, package development and lobbying to influence policy changes around trail corridor development. What's always impressed me about Adventure Trails (and OFSC for that matter as well), is their willingness to work with other trail stakeholders, both motorized and non motorized, to advocate the development for multi use all season trail corridors. Its this multi use partnership and strength in numbers that can help strengthen the trail network while creating new multi season outdoor infrastructure.

Here's some tips for local accommodation, gas, restaurant and visitor services partners to consider in helping welcome snowmobile visitors to the city and area

Get a trail map and study it.

keep the map at your front desk or counter and make available to visiting sledders

Know where they can purchase permits locally. For the 2010/2011 year, seasonal permits are $250.00, 7 day permits are $140.00 and 3 day permits are $100.00. Permit applications are also available online.

Check the trail website periodically to understand trail conditions

offer secure storage for sleds and trailers. It can be a fenced in compound or even an area with security cameras in open sight

For hotels, make rags available (old wash cloths and towels) so sledders can keep their sleds clean and grease free

know the location of local sled service dealers.

Be welcoming and able to suggest places to eat, fuel up and relax.

For more information visit the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC) website.

October Visitor Centre Data shows Seasonal Increase over 2009.

2010-11-29T13:17:00.001-08:00

October saw a significant increase in visitor traffic at the Terry Fox Visitor Centre, with 1788 registered guests seeking local travel information versus 1253 in October 2009, an increase of approximately 30%.

Door counter traffic also increased to 4017, up 13% from 3513 last October.

The travel motivations of our October visitors varied significantly, with visiting friends and families, recreation, circle tour, passing through and events being predominant reasons for travel to the city.

Registrations reflect visitors stopping to talk to our travel councillors and register in our system while the door counters count total traffic using the centre, including rest rooms.

A warm October with ideal fall colour viewing conditions, coupled with aggressive fall drives promotions through OTMPC's Great Fall Drives program and continued CAA and AAA partnerships helped propel traffic upwards. Given that the stretch of highway around the centre is in the midst of a major 4-laning project, the expected inconvenience of construction did not play out and had no negative impact on visitation. Hats off to the contractors for minimizing rock blasting and excavation disruptions for our guests to the community.

There are no surprises or emerging markets to report with this data, supporting the trend of our close haul markets continuing to be the main travel drivers during what is still a tender economy, particularly south of the border. Leading the way was Canadian traffic, representing 81% of total traffic, (dominated by Ontario and Manitoba), followed by the United States at 15% (dominated by Minnesota) and Overseas markets at 4% (largely German and British markets)

Thunder Bay KOA Owners Awarded KOA Franchisee of the Year Honours

2010-11-26T16:43:00.000-08:00

Thunder Bay tourism industry partners Michael and Christine Kuper have recently been awarded Franchisee of the Year honours by KOA at the 2010 KOA convention held in Savannah Georgia.

If you've ever met them or toured their great campground just east of Thunder Bay, it becomes abundantly clear very quickly why. They are the embodiment of exceptional customer service and of the innovative, proactive, and entrepreneurial spirit of the tourism industry.

They have a customer first attitude, offering quality services and added value that clients look for, are full of enthusiasm and are always willing to share consumer feedback with us. I stop by a few times each year to chat with them and I am always amazed at their energy and just how much they value their clients. Having great partners like the Kupers offering quality services to their clientelle makes it a lot easier for all of us to sell the community.

In addition to the multiple wooded RV campsites that can handle the smallest to the absolute largest RVs on the road today, they offer tent camping sites, cabins and lodges for those who want the campground experience but don't own an RV.

Its the value added they offer as well. A heated swimming pool, driving range, mini putt, catch and release fishing pond and bike rentals that create a mini destination for visitors and local RV enthusiasts alike. In 2009, they played host to over 225 Texas RV enthusiasts who collectively brought dozens of RVs to the city for their annual Trophy Gardens RV Club summer reunion and this year, they were gracious lunch time hosts during our spring tourism familiarization tour for visitor centre and hotel front desk staff.

Congratulations to Micheal and Christine for being rewarded for the great customer service and hard work they put into building a fantastic visitor attraction in our community. To see their great operation for yourself, visit their website. or plan to stop by in the spring when they reopen for the 2011 camping season.

Developing Packages That Deliver Added Consumer Value

2010-11-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

Encouraging tourism partners to work collaboratively together to create experiential packages is a topic that has been around for a long time. The concept behind packaging is to take a consumer oriented approach to marketing an experience by making it easy for the consumer to purchase and receive value.

Packaging can include the bundling of similar or complimentary experiences (an attractions passport for example) or the creation of an itinerary, built around the nucleus of an experience and generally includes accommodation and/or culinary options. Remember, people travel for an experience first, destination second, so building it around an experience is integral.

Its about the consumer paying once for their experience but its also about creating a value proposition. Value can be determined by an overall lower package price by purchasing everything as a bundle or it can mean receiving a special incentive-value added experience those buying the experience al a carte - won't receive. Its important not to necessarily confuse value with "cheap" when laying out a package. Its about making the consumer end their experience feeling satisfied they received their money's worth and want to return and experience it again.

Its also about cross promotion. Packages involving multiple partners logically receive exposure in the various media channels of the individual partners, bringing incredible leverage and ensuring a much greater chance of the package enticing the right targeted audience. In this day of on line media, its that much easier to promote the value. and if you're not using digital media as a tool, call a realtor and hang up the for sale sign by the way)

Countless workshops have been held on the subject. during my fourteen years in the industry but it really does not take a full day education session to get it right. In fact, its as easy for tourism partners as emailing another tourism partner and initiating a discussion to work together. There is great opportunity for hotels to work with ski hills or trails, for cultural attractions to work together to develop a passport

And of course, we're always there willing and ready to promote it. We've done it in a huge way with our annual contest based campaigns including Seven Days With the Giant, our new winter Win program, Bluesfest contests and more.

We currently have a whole section of our website dedicated to packages and prominently features golf packages involving Golf Thunder Bay, Whitewater and the Valhalla Inn, Casino packages and vacations offered by Lake Superior Visits. We could, however, use a lot more and we encourage the industry to work with each other to develop them.

If you're a Thunder Bay or area tourism partner with a packaging idea, simply email our product development officer, John Cameron at jcameron@thunderbay.ca

July and August U.S. Traffic Review

2010-11-18T11:59:00.001-08:00

July and August US traffic to Thunder Bay at the Pigeon River Border Crossing showed declines in 2010, a sign that the U.S. economic slowdown, dollar parity and border identification issues continuing to challenge travel patterns.

In July, 17,570 US residents crossed into Canada south of the city, down a modest 3% from 18 190 a year ago. A 3% decline is not a significant concern given the economic environment. 2916 residents took same day trips, 657 stayed a single night and 13997 stayed 2 plus nights.

In August, however, traffic was 15,082, down a significant 16% from a high of 18 043 a year ago. 2907 were day trippers, while 629 stayed a single night and 11546 stayed 2 plus nights.

In both months, same day and single overnight traffic trends remained largely stable, with the biggest hit coming in the multi night stays, consistent with consumer travel data projections for the year that indicated that many travellers would be taking shorter vacations.

However, the local accommodation industry has reported an increase in summer time overnight U.S. traffic, specifically in the motorcycle and lake superior touring segments. These observations and data point to a shift in the US consumer's travel motivators from the traditional angling experience seekers to the touring vacationers and tells us that our marketing and product development focus should shift somewhat towards the touring markets within the U.S. In 2010, we enhanced our AAA media partnerships within key U.S. mid west states as well as other a continued Lake Superior magazine presence and other touring oriented promotional tools, including a new motor sport rally sponsorship program that supported two events.

The Lake Superior Circle Tour is one of North America's most scenic and unique driving destinations and we have some fantastic regional media channels such as Lake Superior Magazine, the North of Superior Circle Tour initiative and Superior Outdoors promoting the basin's lifestyle and experiences. Significant opportunities to grow awareness of the basin that translate into new visitation exist. We all have to come together in a bi national collaborative partnership to not only support these media channels, but develop a more aggressive and cohesive tactical strategy to fulfill the potential and reach new markets.

As always, we're evaluating traffic and economic trends to determine where the shifts are, where growth potential and new markets exist and what channels are working and not working in reaching these targeted experience seekers.

Stay tuned.

Lakehead Alumni Association Profiles Tourism

2010-11-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

Lakehead University is a staple of Thunder Bay's economy and with respect to our role in community development, plays an important role in the regional tourism economy.

The fall and winter 2010 Alumni Magazine is paying homage to the work Lakehead's Department of Outdoor Recreation Parks and Tourism plays in sustainable communuity development and profiles yours truly.

Drs Norm McIntyre, Rhonda Koster and Harvey Lemelen are among the number of faculty working to educate our future tourism leaders while engaging in the vital task of tourism research that gives our industry the planning tools we need to succeed on the world stage.

For me personally, being profiled in the Alumni magazine is an honour and a career high point. Its a humbling experience to be recognized by the school that played a pivotal role in my decision to pursue public service and, in particular, the economic development field. Every year, I make time to share my experiences with students in the Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism and Political Studies departments and find it to be one of elements of my role I truly love.

Thunder Bay Tourism Partners Do Well At Provincial Tourism Awards

2010-11-15T12:07:00.001-08:00

We're thrilled that two Thunder Bay tourism partners have recently received Provincial accolades at the Ontario Tourism Summit's annual awards gala hweld last week at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville.

Fort William Historical Park added another accolade to their trophy case, earning the designation of Tourism Innovator of the Year for the Fort William Historical Park Grand Marais Canada Gateway Centre, an innovative and interactive visitor centre on highway 61 that extends the Fort's reach into the US market, encouraging visitors to the Cook County area to continue along the highway and visit Canada. The Centre carries a Fort theme throughout and in addition to information on the Fort itself, information on Thunder Bay and other Northwestern Ontario attractions and events is featured.

Superior Outdoors Magazine, owned by Darren and Michelle McChristie, was nominated for two images in the best tourism photography category. One of the photos, taken by Gary McGuffin, took top honours. The McChristie's passion for Lake Superior and sustainable tourism deserve credit and the high quality work they do to tell the stories of the experiences and people around the lake helps promote the city and area and is always greatly appreciated by all of us at Tourism Thunder Bay.

Their newest addition to their publishing empire is The Walleye, Thunder Bay's arts and culture alternative. This monthly tabloid offers a a great taste of the diverse and eclectic cultural scene in our community, adding another channel to entice visitors to stay and play a little longer. If you are an accommodation partner in the city, you really need to have copies of The Walleye at your front desks to share with your guests.

Congratulations to Fort William Historical Park and Superior Outdoors!

September Hotel Occupancies Continue to Show Growth

2010-11-15T11:41:00.000-08:00

September continued to see strong growth in the Thunder Bay accommodations sector, with occupancies, average daily rates and RevPar all seeing noticeable increases.

Hotel occupancies rose 5.9% in September over the previous year to 83.8% from 77.8%.
The Average daily rate rose slightly to $99.36 from $97.99 a year ago
Revenue per available room rose a substantial 9.1% to $83.22 from $76.25

By contrast,the Canadian average occupancy rate was 70.2% or 2.4% greater than in 2009. Average daily room rate was $131.14, up.6% from 130.31 a year ago. Revenue per available room was $92,02, up 4.1% from 88.37.

This data is extracted from the PKF September 2010 National Market Report and we publish only the local and national data. We encourage our tourism partners looking for more depth of hotel performance data to contact PKF directly for their range of products and services at pkfcanada.com

Thunder Bay's occupancy rate remained one of the highest of any market in the country in September. However, the city is still a relative bargain, posting one of the lower daily average room rate and revenue per room rates nationally. This is certainly a competitive advantage, especially when bidding on cost sensitive sport and convention business. However, there may be room for some modest upward growth in room rates without compromising that advantage.

September proved to be a strong year on several fronts, buoyed by a stronger than normal fall touring leisure market and a strong corporate, meeting and convention market. Usually, September sees a bit of a downward turn locally as the summer leisure market drops and the fall convention travel market hasn't quite picked up from the summer vacation period.

We're pleased to see this upward trend continue, the result of a number of positive developments in the local economy around mining and health sciences, better air connectivity to the GTA with Porter, Westjet and Jazz, capital re investments in a number of properties and a more enhanced focus on the fall touring markets through OTMPC and AAA partnerships.

Four Social Media Channels Every Tourism Business Should Use.

2010-11-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

Digital media is the new standard in marketing. Period. Just in case anyone has doubts.

A huge part of the digital environment are the social media channels that create connections between businesses and consumers that are often more authentic and personal. Over 500 million people are on Facebook. Youtube is the worlds' second most searched site and millions more twitter. Why is it so important?

Tourism, like all other industries, is changing dramatically in a digital world. From a marketing perspective, its now so much easier and cost effective to target the clients that want what you have to offer them. With 80% of North American travellers using the Internet as a research and trip planning tool and 75% of travellers looking for an experience, not a destination, not using, let along understanding social media leads to -and rightfully so if I can be so harsh - failure.

People google or yahoo or Bing an experience and it pops up. The more your business or experience offered is tagged in the online world, the greater the chance it has of coming up closer to the top of the search engines. Consumer behavior dictates that they shop starting at the top. Online media channels allow businesses to add content so easily, creating conversations with their guests or clients and adding to the search engine optimization of SEO. (tactics that allow search engines to ensure your business is easily discovered by clients)

The tourism industry regionally needs to embrace the change. I once witnessed a tourism operator stand up in a room of one hundred people declare that the Internet was a fad just three short years ago. I've heard others say they don't have time to return email inquiries because it wastes their time. I witnessed just two days ago a complaint from within the industry itself that we shouldn't use the Internet to communicate with the industry because not every operator has a computer.

While most are connected, the reality is that the regional industry is still largely dominated by a predominantly rural (remember that cell service and high speed is relatively new in our big beautiful wilderness landscape), established, older ownership group that finds the fast pace of digital media evolution a little bewildering. I'm 39 and spend hours every evening at home engaging, tweaking and learning the latest digital media trends and its a continual learning process. That's where we, as tourism professionals, have an obligation to help foster a learning environment and provide access to the solutions and resources.

There are some staples in the social media world that every tourism professional, whether a mom and pop operator or a major hotel chain, should familiarize themselves with.

1. Get a Facebook profile. Spend some time creating one online, invite your guest to join and engage them in online communications. By posting pics, stories and video, and inviting your clients to do the same, you create loyalty and give prospective new clients a window to the experience.

2. Start a blog. If you're reading this, you know what one is. Create one and communicate with your guests. Use the tags to ensure your content is discovered and use links to link to your website or those of your partners. For Tourism Thunder Bay, this is the tool we use to communicate industry news and performance. This is the format that media pick up story ideas from, that gives our industry partners the research links they need to make better decisions and that tells the story of the local industry. We've developed this as our main industry communication platform for a strategic reason and that is to encourage all of our tourism partners to embrace technology if they want to get ahead.

3. Youtube (remember what I said earlier about this being the 2nd most searched website on the planet?). You can buy a HD digital movie camera for $150 bucks, create video and post it to your own Youtube channel. Its easy and gives your guests the visuals they need to help them make a vacation decision. Make it informative, fun and entertaining.

4. Twitter. To me, every single tourism business in Thunder Bay should have a Twitter account (ours is www.twitter.com/visitthunderbay). This is the simplest online social tool you can employ to maximize that important online connectivity with your consumers and increase the search engine optimization of your site and product. I Twitter about 20-40 times per week, using the 140 character micro blog site to tell our loyal followers whats going on in the city, share interesting consumer focused tourism news and share little tidbits about the city. We have only been able to find 5 other local tourism organizations with Twitter accounts to follow and retweet.

Of course, all of your social media should support a well developed, informative and current website that is easily navigable and has lots of visual content.

I recently had someone from the tourism industry in my office dismissive about digital media, instead extolling the virtues of trade shows and destination oriented print guides......I'm not saying that there aren't other media channels that can be effective in reaching you consumer because select print shows are still part of our strategy. however, we increasingly scrutinize those investments and have reduced them, through performance measurement, to those that return on investment. The majority of our investment and effort has been shifting to digital in the past three years, with that shift continuing to comprise the majority of our communication strategy in the future.

If you're a tourism operator and you want to get more comfortable with engaging these great (and often free) communication and marketing tools, we're planning to bring in a series of professionally hosted workshops in the new year facilitated by people who know a lot more than me about social media. But if you just want to chat about social media for a few minutes, my door is always open. Just email me at ppepe@thunderbay.ca

Ministry of Tourism Research Tools Improve Decision Making

2010-11-12T15:44:00.000-08:00

I like numbers. Anyone who follows me knows that I'm always advocating - and sometimes pleading - for people to understand the myriad of consumer travel data as it relates to making sound investment and marketing decisions within the tourism industry. As many know, I'm proud that all of our strategic decisions are made using consumer research.

The days of building product for selfish reasons ("well I think its neat, therefore everyone else will" syndrome) and "spray and pray" marketing approaches that hit everyone hoping something will stick are ineffective and irresponsible approaches to planning and execution.

One of the single best free sources of such data to help us all make informed decisions is the Ministry of Tourism. Past and current performance, travel motivator studies (TAMS) and regional economic profiles provide significant ammunition to help both public and private sector tourism partners make informed decisions that enhance chances for success.

With the recent move over to the regional tourism organization framework, the Ministry has even updated data to reflect the regional tourism profiles of all thirteen regions, including Northern Ontario's sub regions.

Even the presentations provided at the 2010 Ontario Tourism Summit have already been posted online so those that couldn't write fast enough at the sessions or couldn't attend in person, has access to the same great insights as everyone else.

When I get asked for advice from operators about making their business more successful, the first question is ask is "Do you have a business plan?" I hear some that do, some that wrote one when they first opened and some who respond "huh?" Having a business plan, including a strong marketing and financial component is critical to starting out (essential if you're applying for financing) and updating that plan annually or even bi-annually is not a bad idea as markets can change rapidly. For an established business, even an annual marketing plan is a good start. At the end of the day, these are some of the most basic questions you need to have answers for.

Who is your client
What do they value in a travel experience
Where do they live
How do they shop
What are they willing to pay for your experience
what will it cost to reach them and deliver on their expectations

...and this is where the research helps you.

In Northern Ontario, we've had, for far too long, a culture of entitlement expecting the government to do everything for us and hand out grant money, all the while berating them for not doing what we want them too. The single most important level of support that can be provided to our regional tourism industry is information. Its up to us to take the initiative, act like entrepreneurs and leaders, and embrace this plethora of information to chart our own future as a financially sustainable industry.

Wise Investing the Key to Growing a Sustainable Tourism Economy

2010-11-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

There are two key things every single person in the tourism industry needs to abide by.

First. We are in business to give visitors the exceptionally high quality experiences they are looking for.

Second. We're in this industry to make money.

Visitor experiences that create a net loss to the industry do not reflect wise investing and are sadly, often the results of poor planning and an absence of market demand research during the planning process.

In Northern Ontario we've been riding a wave of public tourism infrastructure projects for well over 40 years. Some are great catalyst attractions that are acknowledged to incur an operating loss but provide a net economic gain to the community through increased visitor retention and spending. Provincial and National Parks, Substantially programmed provincial attractions, arenas, convention centers and public/private waterfront development partnerships are examples of these successful models. Some, like the myriad of "heritage" and "interpretive" centres are built with the best of intentions, but evidence has shown repeatedly that they rarely meet their performance expectations and fail to deliver as catalyst attractions as stand alone venues.

Many communities feel the pressure to grasp at any and all public tourism infrastructure projects and hope they are the "hail Mary" passes that transform their community. We've lived with an expectation that government funds are always available to build them...but often forget the the absence of operating grants to keep the doors open when the dust settles.

We need to look at these potential tourism projects with a critical business oriented eye and truthfully weigh their operating deficits - and lets be honest, in Northern Ontario, most do - against their effect of visitor retention and increased community spending. Its called Return on Investment (ROI) and its the first thing every private tourism operator looks at when making a decision.

Financing the capital component is relatively easy from the various programs available federally and provincially. However, if a projected operating deficit in the feasibility study is still greater than the total community impact of the project, it would, in fact, not grow the local tourism economy and put money into the city and region - but actually take money out of it.

When I conduct an ROI analysis, I look at the role of the attraction in terms of consumer demand or interest. An attraction is only an attraction if people are attracted to it.

If there is a expected consumer demand, we move to the next phase - Capital - Can it be financed or funded and what kind of partnerships can logically come together, whether public, private or a mix.

Thirdly - and this is the critical one - operations. and there are three scenarios that can exist. One, will it turn a profit. Two, will it turn a loss but be offset by the positive economic impact by extending visitor stays in the community (an extra half day turns into an additional meal or hotel room stay) or have a viable endowment fund to cover operating losses. Three, the economic impact remains less than the operating loss. Arriving at scenario three, for us, is a red light that stops a project in its track. We look at the number of projected visitors, the average length of visit to the attraction and using Ministry of Tourism localized visitor spending data, we determine the economic impact. Than I add the multiplier of 1.6 - the recognized notion that every new dollar entering a community creates an additional 60 cents in spending through wages and local supplies purchased. This gives us the total economic impact. If that is less than the operating deficit, it doesn't get my endorsement without changes.

I always advise the groups often driving these initiatives that they need to decide if they want to alter the project scope, seek additional programming partners to build critical mass and realize operating efficiencies or simply walk away.

In economic development (of which tourism is a huge generator in these parts) we are not acting responsibly towards the industry or community partnerships by ignoring research and empirical data that could see enormous legal and financial ramifications for organizations or have to endure the embarrassment of another boarded up business or attraction in the community.

The Ontario Tourism Competitiveness Strategy is built on four pillars and one is "Investing Wisely" We need to depart from the economic development philosophy of grasping at every thing that presents itself and make investments that are financially sustainable as profit centres or positive community catalyst investments. I've spend fourteen years in this industry, many of them evaluating multi million dollar proposals for government funding of such tourism centres and I can tell you, honest due diligence is essential to the integrity of the funders, proponents and the consultants often hired to write their business and feasibility plans. We don't do anything constructive by ignoring business plan or feasibility studies that present negative financial and visitation projections.

Now, I'll go back to an earlier statement about providing visitors with the high quality experiences they desire as our number one mission. Many, many of these experiences can and are being delivered by the private sector - for profit. Visitor retention can be accomplished in the same way by a farmers market, boat tour, a culinary or artisan gallery experience or even a self guided historical walking tour. These experiences often require little, if any public funds and our role in getting them rolling and keeping them sustainable can be achieved through giving them the research tools in their planning and promoting them-under the city or regional brand - effectively so visitors know where to find them. Its about rethinking what an attraction is through the visitors eyes, not ours.

We have to achieve a new investment paradigm and rapidly rethink our approach tourism investment and product development in the region to ensure we have a sustainable tourism economy that is built on consumer demand generators.

Ontario Tourism Summit Takes It to the Next Level.

2010-11-10T15:39:00.000-08:00

Another Ontario Tourism Summit has wrapped up and once again, Tourism Thunder Bay took advantage of the exceptional program offered by OTMPC and the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario.

This year's program, held at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, provided a series of sessions, designed to provide high level strategic tools to help us grow the tourism sector with the theme "Taking it to the Next Level."

And that folks, is exactly what we need to do to compete globally with consumer focused demand generated experiences and focused tactical communications strategies.

Highlights this year included a global economic snapshot by Scotiabank Economist Warren Jestin, An Ipsos Reid Travel Trends address, and a riveting social and online media presentation by Mitch Joel, author of Six Pixels of Separation. We need to know who our customer is, what they really want and we have to connect with them using the tools they use to communicate with.

We also had the chance to hear Joseph Michelli, customer service expert and author of The New Gold Standard and The Starbucks Experience who really drove home the point on how essential exceptional client care is a cornerstone of raising the reputation of our industry, one business at a time. Its a presentation that everyone in the industry can learn from.

A series of concurrent sessions on the second day provided insights to the larger delegate group on the RTO process throughout the various regions as well as new product development trends in cycle touring and culinary tourism, emerging markets in India, China and Brazil, winning marketing strategies and investment attraction.

The Sunday RTO session brought together the executive leads for all 13 Regional Tourism Organizations in the same room for the first time in the process where we compared notes on progress, learned from each other on the challenges and opportunities presented by the process and the status of the various priority projects being undertaken throughout the Province. As the executive lead for 13C, the Province's largest region by geography, it was a great opportunity to learn and share best practices with others and raise awareness of our region's opportunities and challenges getting through the process.

More than ever, its imperative that we make our tourism investments, whether they be in strategic infrastructure, capacity building or marketing, on demand generated research. Its about know exactly who our clients are, what they want and how they shop for their travel experience.

Most importantly, the conference gave us in the industry a chance to network with each other and have the ears of the Province's senior ministry personnel and elected officials, giving us the venue in which to discuss strategy, learn best practices and raise concerns in a constructive positive environment. Minister of Tourism Michael Chan provided a keynote address on taking our industry to the next level on the recommendations presented in the Ontario Tourism Competitiveness Strategy

The summit is the must attend event each year and never fails to disappoint. We are in an incredibly competitive industry and its essential we work collaboratively using consumer research driven intelligence to make sound investments in product and marketing. Anyone who wants to grow their segment of the industry should be learning from this because the days of political and intuitively driven product development, substandard customer service and "spray and pray" marketing are over, perhaps something worthy of a museum exhibit.

OTMPC Travel Trade Session Opens Eyes on Affluent Travel Trends

2010-11-04T14:06:00.001-07:00

The travel trade has been an important link in the tourism industry supply chain for decades and while we've engaged that segment's tour operators, receptive guides and cruise ship operators, the affluent travel trade segment has been something we have not spent enough time as a region working on.

About 18 months ago, I had two epiphanies back to back. The first came to me at the Calgary outdoor show where we shared floor space with African and Kenyan wildlife safaris (both consumptive hunting and photography), wilderness adventures and other destinations offering luxury epic adventures. My thought was "Our natural environment is just as exotic as they are. Why are we not as confident in it."

About a month later, at Cruise Shipping Miami, I proclaimed to a Galapagos Island tour operator that they should reposition their ship to the Great Lakes because we are every bit as exotic as the Galapagos!" Bold words indeed.

Getting there requires an understanding of the changes in travel motivations and emerging travel trends and the willingness of our private sector to make the necessary infrastructure and capacity improvements to attract these avid affluent adventure markets.

I was fortunate to be invited to an Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation travel trade education session today in Toronto, bringing four of North America's premier travel trade operators together in a day long panel to meet with eighty tourism professionals invited to participate from across the Province.

These professionals, Cathy Holler from Virtuoso, Norman Howe from Horizon and Co, Victoria Pearson from Routes to Learning and Nancy Blount of Blount Small Ships Cruising, The session provided valuable information on the educated and affluent segment of the North American market that we haven't given enough thought about. Despite the recession, there are still people working. With over 1 million millionaires and 25 million $100 000 plus households in the United States, many are still travelling and looking for value - not cheapness but experiences they feel good about and are willing to pay accordingly to enjoy them.

One of the common themes that emerged throughout the day by all of the presenters was on natural and cultural environment being a large draw for the emerging travel markets. How about that! We have natural environment that includes the world's largest freshwater lake, largest continual boreal forest and wildlife that is no less exotic than that found around the globe. Thunder Bay is the urban hub for all of this connected to the world by great air corridor connectivity, highway infrastructure and port. In the new regional tourism environment, working in partnership with the areas beyond our city lights is imperative to meeting the desires of the emerging traveller.

Armed with this consumer awareness and the desire for these firms to seek out new experiences for their clientele, the opportunity presents itself to look at our core attributes and identify the infrastructure and capacity improvements we need to make as an industry to attract them. Its the remote angling lodge reached by epic float plane journey, cruising the archipelago of the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area or watching, camera in hand, eagles, bears and moose in their natural environment. These core trophy experiences connect to local culinary creations and a luxurious bed in a B and B, Inn or lodge.

We have a lot of product components already in place and some close to getting there. Critical to our strategy is raising the game of our experiences to the highest level possible by as many partners as possible and tools like today's session help us get there. We'll be following up in the next few months on developing some educational forums for industry interested in reaching these new affluent markets.

Understanding the Regional Big Picture at NOTO

2010-11-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had the privilege to attend NOTO's 83rd annual conference in Dryden. for those who don't know, NOTO is "Nature and Outdoor Tourism Ontario" (formerly Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters.)

I was there to make a presentation on the RTO process currently being developed in Ontario and in particular, the status of the work being done in Northern Ontario or Region 13. It was a chance to present, hear comments, ideas and concerns from the resource based operators that dominate the industry in the northwest. It was also a great chance to see Dryden's relatively new and spectacular Training and Cultural Centre, giving me a sense of the region's meeting and convention product outside of Thunder Bay.

NOTO does a lot of great advocacy work on behalf of that segment of the industry and is not just focused on marketing but rather on capacity building and policy advocacy with the multitude of government agencies whose policies positively - and negatively - impact our tourism industry.

This year, I was able to make time and stay for the entire 2 day conference, giving me a much better appreciation as an urban tourism guy, about the issues, challenges and opportunities facing the outfitters in our region. In addition to the updates on the RTO, presentations on forest fire prevention and combat strategies, bed allocation on remote lakes, land tenure, trending, border issues, recreational off road vehicle licencing, marketing and digital media provided a valuable forum to network and understand the bigger picture. This is certainly a forum and organization more operators in the industry need to know about and get involved with. I've known the organization's Executive Director, Doug Rynolds, for the past nine years and I can say that he works tirelessly on behalf of the industry's interests...and its an industry with a lot of demands. He's also been one of Thunder Bay's biggest supporters from the resource based sector, helping us create those urban/wilderness linkages and mutual respect essential to moving forward as a region.

As an aside, one of my co executive colleagues and friend, Dave McLaughlan of North to Adventure, was awarded the Bob Giles Award for his tireless efforts to grow and promote the north through his work with the RTO, OTMPC's Northern Committee and the Algoma Kinnewabi Travel Association. Congrats Dave.

As many know, Thunder Bay is working hard in its tourism strategy to position itself as a gateway city to some of the best outdoor adventures on the planet so its imperative we understand the experiences and markets beyond out city lights and build new potential partnerships.

If you want to learn more about NOTO, visit them @ www.noto.net

Heart of the Continent Partnership Brings Public Lectures to Thunder Bay

2010-10-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

The Heart of the Continent Partnership is a bi national collective of Provincial, State and National Parks, academic and community leaders from Ontario and Minnesota working on some great initiatives that will have a positive impact for the region and help Foster new bi national partnerships based on common goals around balancing community development with neighboring public protected lands.

The reality is quite simply that Thunder Bay is the gateway city to some of the world's best known wilderness parks - Quetico, Wabikimi, Sleeping Giant, the Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area and even Isle Royale National Park across the border. Creating stronger links with these fantastic natural environment assets is critical to helping grow and diversify our tourism markets. For years, cities have ignored their neighboring parks and protected areas with the mistaken belief that they bring little tourism value to the communities. As demographic shift, a growing number of travellers seek outdoor experiences with a higher level of comfort, with the vast majority appreciating the experience but wishing for softer culinary and accommodation options nearby. For those seeking to "rough it", they need a place to stage, pick up gear and groceries and have a civilized respite at the end of their epic journey. This is where we, as a city, have to link in.

One of the initiatives undertaken by the HOCP is the Gateway Communities Forum, scheduled for the fall of 2011 and a number of us are currently working on the design and development of this conference, to be co hosted between Thunder Bay and Grand Portage - a truly international partnership.

On Wednesday October 6th, the public will have a chance to take in some public forums related to our parks and protected area neighbors and understand a little more about their ecological and economic importance.

Earth wind fire and Climate change : Whats the future of our Northern Forests and Communities, takes place in the University Centre 2011 - Upper Lecture Theatre at 4:30 PM and will explore the key ecological issues of today int he region

Public Conservation - Balancing Nature and Commerce in Communities that Neighbor Public Lands, is an open conversation with members of the Gateway Communities Initiative Design Team and the public to discuss how public lands and communities can thrive side by side in an positive economic framework. This discussion takes place in the ATAC Building Room 5035 from 7 to 9 PM

For more information on the Heart of the Continent Partnership, visit their website @ www.heartofthecontinent.org

July US Border Traffic Shows Trend Shift Towards Touring

2010-09-21T06:27:00.000-07:00

The July, 2010 U.S. traffic numbers for the Pigeon River Border Crossing show that a shift in the U.S. travel market is emerging, from a traditional reliance on the angling market and larger groups to a new growth in the touring experience and smaller group sizes.

Total number of U.S, residents entering the region south of the city was 17,570 compared to 18,190 in July 2009. ( a modest 3% drop) However, the number of vehicles increased slightly to 6953 from 6904 a year ago.

We've seen modest decreases in 1 and 2 plus night stays from the US market but an increase in same day traffic, supporting the notion that residents are taking shorter trips.

For the year to date, US traffic to Thunder Bay through Pigeon river is down approximately 10% to 51,213 from 56,305 a year ago.

However, U.S. visitation to local hotels appears to have increased this summer, leading to a presumption that, while the traditional angling market continues to be battered by the US economy and war efforts overseas, a new avid touring and adventure market appears to be growing to replace this market loss. The U.S, economy remains somewhat slow to rebound in the U.S. Midwest, our key markets, and a huge number of US families have family members serving overseas in various conflicts, and that's keeping a lot of people from enjoying a proper vacation until they return from duty. That said, its a huge close haul market we cannot, in the short term turn our backs on. We simply have to target our key visitor a little more carefully in the meantime.

We attribute the shift in touring towards an increase in our U.S. touring promotion efforts, including an increased presence in AAA web and print media, Lake Superior and Superior Outdoors magazines and targeted touring and soft adventure markets in targeted state capital markets of St Paul, Chicago and Madison. Work we've done in attracting cruise ship and autosport rallys to the city have also helped create new markets.

This drives home the point that we must know who our client is and what experiences they seek. selling the same thing to the same people using the same channels no longer works. Yet, we cannot ignore the 7.5 million US passport holders who live in our key geographic markets, nor the trends in touring, driven largely by the motorcycle and auto sport segments. We must also invest in new product development and enhancements to attract these emerging markets. Seeing local hotels establish secure motorcycle parking zones and added security features, bike cleaning towels in their rooms and other welcoming investments goes a long way to helping us take advantage of shifts in the market place. Angling has a lot of potential to remain a larger part of the regional experience but the industry must, overall, renew investment in individual resort infrastructure to meet changing demographics.

On the domestic side, we've seen strong Ontario traffic as well as a growth in Manitoba visitation, drawn to the parks and circle tour route. BC and Alberta re driving a lot of the transient single night stay traffic as people relocate east to west for employment purposes.

Thunder Bay Selected to Host the 23rd Ontario Provincial

2010-09-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Thunder Bay Chapter of the Harley Owner’s Group (H.O.G®) is pleased to
announce that Thunder Bay has been selected to host the 23rd Ontario Provincial Harley Owners Group (H.O.G®) Rally from July 28-30, 2011.

Hundreds of Harley Davidson® owners and enthusiasts from Ontario as well as Manitoba and the U.S. midwest are expected to descend upon the City for their annual Provincial gathering, enjoying the City’s Superior by Nature Hospitality for “Thunder in the Bay”, the aptly chosen name for this unique event.

This is the first opportunity the City of Thunder Bay has had to host a H.O.G® Motorcycle rally and it will be an opportunity for the city to showcase its natural beauty and many features. During the rally Harley Davidson® riders will take part in a variety of activities, games and tests of riding skill as well as ride our beautiful countryside and simply see the sights. Co-coordinators for the event

Susan Macey and John Aiken both agree that a major feature of the rally will be a parade of “Hogs” through the city which will be great fun for riders and spectators alike. It will be a great opportunity for bikers and non bikers to come out and share the excitement.
The 23rd Ontario Provincial Harley Owners Group (H.O.G®) Rally is being sponsored by our local Harley Davidson® dealer and the Local H.O.G® chapter. The local H.O.G® chapter is made up of 168 recreational biking members all of whom are looking forward to the opportunity to meet fellow motorcycle enthusiasts. H.O.G® is the largest factory sponsored motorcycle club in the world with almost 1,000,000 members in 1400 chapters leading to great rides, lifetime memories and friendships worldwide.

The Victoria Inn has been chosen as the host hotel for the rally and event activities will be centered around the hotel and the Harley Davidson® dealership on Arthur Street.
Recreational motorcycling is becoming very popular throughout Canada and this event will bring a significant economic impact, not only to Thunder Bay, but to other Lake Superior coastal communities as well as riders take in one of North America’s most scenic coastal touring routes to attend the event here. Over a quarter of a million dollars is expected to be generated in local economic impacts with riders staying in the community over the course of the event.

Click here to watch the news clip. www.tbnewswatch.com/video/20069/harley-rally

For further information please contact:

John Aiken
Rally Co-Coordinator
(807) 474-9833

Susan Macey
Rally Co-Coordinator

Understanding Consumers Interests is More Important Than Regulating Them

2010-09-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

The consideration of bylaws that restrict overnight RV parking to private and public camp grounds has been discussed in a number of communities and on the surface, it appears to be a well intentioned initiative to direct all traffic to financially support the camp ground industry. Truthfully, I used to be in favour of them. However, the consideration of implementing such regulations and the unfortunate choice of words used to describe this segment in a recent local editorial fails to look at the larger picture and artificially creates an issue that really isn't leading to any collapse of the tourism industry. In the long run, it hurts us.

What we must maintain as the cornerstone of our entire tourism strategy, is to focus on what the consumer wants…and not every consumer wants or needs the same overnight experience. Thunder Bay has an exceptional array of high quality municipal, provincial and private campgrounds, all well operated and offering different services to attract different segments within the large RV travel market. We invest significant resources to promote these natural environment establishments, encourage their use and direct commerce in their direction but we also can never lose sight of the fact that some of our guests desire a different or basic alternative. No business, in any segment of the economy, can assume the entire marketplace thinks and acts and wants the same.

We approach this segment, like others, in a pragmatic means to grow the market and drive more traffic to all tourism partners, not simply divide it into smaller slices or even reduce it’s overall value. Those who park overnight in free lots reflect a small percentage of the overall RV market.

Defending the decision to ban parking in private parking lots (and come on, this only occurs in one lot, right?) fails to consider that some RV owners arrive in the community late or leave early, may have large relatively immobile units, don’t have needs for ancillary services or may simply want to be near urban dining or retail experiences. We should not, as a business community, condemn this very small market for wishing or needing to save $30 per night given that they still leave an economic impact in terms of food, retail, attractions admissions, repairs and fuel. They are even known to use, for a fee, pump out stations and showers at campgrounds (did I say "for a fee"?) Irregardless of how and where the economic impacts occur in our communities, it is almost entirely to tourism partners who pay property and taxes and employ local residents.

Most importantly, however, its all about creating a warm and welcoming environment and reputation to ALL of our visitors, irregardless of their economic impact. Imposing bylaws that unnecessarily restrict visitor movements and public editorial comments equating this travel segments to “tenants skipping out on rent” and labelling them as “free loaders” is typicval of a ready shoot aim mentality and does more damage in attracting and welcoming visitors. RV enthusiasts communicate on a digital stage and will avoid such destinations. Frankly, I'd rather have the 200 or so RVers annually who park for free but shop and visit local attractions than not have any of them at all. These regulatory tactics and negative customer service attitudes can very well backfire and end up putting the entire visitor oriented RV supply chain further behind in advancing this important and diversified travel segment.

To succeed in growing our tourism economy it is imperative we stop forcing guests through regulation to do what they don’t want but rather understand the scope of our visitor’s travel motivators, range of interests and true impacts and respond to them with exceptional levels of service, delivering value and extending a warm welcome. If we stay to this course, the market will grow and everyone will benefit who has the entrpreneureal desire to.

At the end of the day, knowing and respecting what consumers want and desire is a far more enlightened approach to regulating them to do and see and experience what we think they should want or forcing them to chancge their travel motivators to suit us. To be successful, shouldn't we be doing a better job catering to them? We have to pick our battles when it comes to tourism policy and this one is very ow on the list.

THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO NAMED AS FINALIST IN

2010-09-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

TORONTO, September 7, 2010 – When WFN: World Fishing Network, North America’s only 24/7 fishing channel, asked Canadians to name the best place to wet a line, loyal anglers from more than 160 different communities nationwide stepped up to tell WFN why their town is Canada’s best place to fish. After more than a month of nominations and public voting, 10 of these towns, including Thunder Bay, Ontario, have earned a spot as a finalist in the search for WFN’s Ultimate Fishing Town.

The 10 finalists for WFN’s Ultimate Fishing Town are: Port Alberni British Columbia; Chilliwack, British Columbia; Dauphin, Manitoba; Nestor Falls, Ontario; Thunder Bay, Ontario; Port Rowan, Ontario; Seeley’s Bay, Ontario; Miramichi, New Brunswick; O’Leary, Prince Edward Island; and Nipawin, Saskatchewan.

To vote for Thunder Bay, or to simply look at its entry which includes videos, photos and testimonials from numerous passionate Thunder Bay anglers, people can visit http://www.wfn.tv/ultimate-fishing-town/Thunder-Bay.
The final phase of voting begins today at www.wfn.tv/fishingtown and runs through September 28th. The winning community, which will be announced in October, will receive a $25,000 donation to be used towards fishing–related cause(s) and have a 30-minute feature show about fishing in their town air on WFN. There will also be over $7,500 in additional prizes awarded.

The 10 cities and towns advanced to the final round after more than 220,000 votes were cast for the 160 nominated towns and cities. The top two vote-getters in each of the three geographic regions (Ontario, West and Atlantic) advanced to the final round. The other four finalists were selected by WFN based on originality, persuasiveness, energy, the nature of the community organization or cause and the number of on-line votes received. Only votes accumulated during the final round of voting will be used to determine WFN’s Ultimate Fishing Town.

“Proud and passionate anglers from more than 160 different towns and cities across Canada tried to stake their claim as WFN’s Ultimate Fishing Town, and after a nationwide vote, 10 are left standing,” said Mark Rubinstein, President and CEO of World Fishing Network. “We hope every angler across Canada who has ever cast a line will now cast a vote for the place they consider WFN’s Ultimate Fishing Town.”

The finalists are encouraged to mobilize their supporters to vote. To help, WFN has created easy to use applications at www.wfn.tv/fishingtown that allow users to customize posters and web banners. The site also offers icons for use on various social communication tools such as MSN, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, BBM and more. The voting guidelines limit voting from one email address every 12 hours. WFN is closely monitoring votes and removing votes deemed fraudulent.

WFN is available nationwide. Check www.wfn.tv/subscribe for a complete list of TV providers and channel numbers.

About WFN: World Fishing Network
WFN: World Fishing Network is the only 24/7 television network dedicated to all segments of fishing with programming that covers instruction, tips, tournaments, travel, food, boating, outdoor lifestyle and more. WFN's wide-ranging programming lineup includes primetime theme nights, regional bureaus from across the nation, a selection of the best international series and the most diverse species coverage of any TV channel. Featuring popular programs hosted by the world's top anglers, the network also delivers a weekly news program, WFN News, and the schedule includes a variety of exclusive lifestyle shows including Hookin' up with Mariko Izumi. WFN also delivers the beauty of fishing in stunning High Definition with WFN HD, a separate network that delivers 100 percent High Definition programming 24/7.
Like millions of anglers across the continent, WFN is committed to supporting important conservation issues and groups that are fighting to preserve North America’s waterways and fisheries. WFN is also dedicated to using its resources and powerful media platform to help grow the sport by promoting and championing groups and organizations that are helping to inspire a new generation of anglers to appreciate and respect the world’s natural wonders.
Originally launched in December 2005, today WFN and WFN HD are available in more than 20 million households through North American cable, satellite and telecommunications distributors. For more information, visit http://www.WFN.TV.

Final Phase of Voting is Open at www.WFN.TV/fishingtown Until
September 28 – Winner Announced in October

Media Contact: Doug Drotman - WFN (631-462-1198 or doug@drotmanpr.com)

Early Summer Performance Identifies Opportunities and Trends

2010-09-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

With summer behind us, we turn our attention to reviewing this past year's leisure market performance. While the North American economy still has a long way to go to a full recovery, we are seeing positive signs of growth - and shifts - in the local tourism economy.

Hotel performance to the end of June points to a strong recovery for the city in both leisure and corporate travel. June occupancy rates in the city were 79.7%, up a whopping 12.4% over the previous June. RevPar rose 22.3% to $78.21 per room. For the year to date ending June 30th, overall annual occupancy rose 4.4% to 66.4% and RevPar rose 8% to 63.86. The national YTD average occupancy rate was 57.3%. (sourced from PKF Consulting Inc. We encourage our tourism partners seeking more detailed occupancy performance data to contact PKF directly at http://www.pkfcanada.com for their range of consulting products and services)

We're still a ways from a full recovery in the North American corporate travel markets as organizations continue to send fewer delegates to meetings but we seem to have seen an increase in the number of meetings held in the city this year, albeit with fewer participants per meeting.

Despite some 2009 and first quarter 2010 stability in the US markets, we seem to have struggled a little in May and June, with decreases to the end of June in the 12% range. these are the latest numbers we have on U.S. residents crossing into Canada and we are certainly waiting to see the July and August stats before fully evaluating and commenting on the US travel market. However, given what we've seen from the travel centres and the hotel performance, we are observing a shift in travel motivators from our U.S. guests. While the traditional angling market has fallen off (with demographics aligning with some of the hardest hit economic regions) a growth in the touring market, primarily motorcycle and RV, has offset some of that decline. The lesson here is simply this, we cannot discount the US travel markets but rather start marketing to emerging markets using new tools.

Attractions performance also seems to have stabilized with modest increases reported by some attractions partners. Overall, however, we're not hearing anyone in the city cry that the sky is falling, but rather hearing some positive trends and optimistic outlooks to future performance. One thing is certain and that is that we all, as an industry, have to keep moving forward constructively, positively and productively to take advantage of the changes in the consumer travel motivators so as to keep this upswing going.

With performance data for July and August still outstanding, we'll be preparing a seasonal wrap up sometime in the coming months to coinside with the development of our 2011-2013 strategy.

2010 Brings more Positive Travel Media Exposure to the City

2010-08-25T07:16:00.001-07:00

Thunder Bay is continuing to see a strong travel media presence this summer with a number of web, print, television and viral stories released and new media personalities discovering the community's experiences.

Travel media is an essential and critical component of our community's tourism marketing strategy because it extends our reach to larger markets with significant visuals and editorial content that a simple advertisement just cannot deliver. When working with travel media we like to see an end product that ultimately has a digital home and where it can be shared with readers globally.

First, let's start with some of the media we've seen released in the past month or so.

KSTP, the Minneapolis ABC Television affiliate, paid two visits to our great community back in June and early July to tape a series of segments for their evening news travel program called "On the Road With Jason Davis. While here, Jason and his cameraman, David Peterson, visited Fort William Historical Park, Eagle Canyon, Kakabeka Falls, the Amethyst Mine Panorama and experienced Lake Superior salmon fishing with Archie's Charters. These segments went to air in late July in the Minneapolis and St Paul markets and you can view them here at http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/s1655626.shtml?cat=69

The Toronto Star published a story about Thunder Bay's iconic connection to its natural environment this past July as well. Writer David Gonczol visited the community back in 2009 and spent several days exploring with SailSuperior.com, and experiencing the city's Finnish and culinary culture. You can read it here at http://www.thestar.com/travel/article/841808--a-superior-experience-in-thunder-bay

Recently, we received a note from Victoria that we got a brief mention in a story on Great Lakes Cruise Shipping. The M.V. Columbus returns to the Great Lakes in 2011 with two scheduled stops in Thunder Bay and a story about the vessel's North American itineraries made it into the Victoria daily news.

A recent story on the Thunder Bay to Sault Ste Marie touring route found its way online at antimusic.com and rocknworld.com. Kevin Wierzbicki, an Arizona based free lancer, was here in early July and published his story in mid August. Read more here at http://www.rocknworld.com/roadtrip/10/lakes/index.shtml

As the majority of writers are scoping out and researching their stories well in advance of their publication and release, some of the articles being researched now won't appear for up to a year in market. That said, we're having an incredibly busy August, with no fewer than three separate groups in the city this week alone. This includes the publishers of the annual Travel Guide to Canada, motorcycle journalists Joe and Flora Lloyd (http://www.curbsyde.com/), and a Minnesota based freelancer.

Our media footprint continues to raise the profile of the community and its experiences, helps us solidify our goal to be positioned as one of Canada's best outdoor cities and rising destination of choice for avid educated outdoor enthusiasts, sport tourism participants, convention planners and group tour operators.

Responding Confidently to Changes in Travel Patterns Can Yield Success.

2010-07-27T06:30:00.001-07:00

This morning's edition of the Chronicle Journal provided a little insight into the state of U.S. travel to the Thunder Bay area and offers a slice of optimism in what remains our closest large market. We are 45 minutes to a country of over 300 million, 35 million of whom live within a 15 hour drive of us. Ignoring this market because of the border crossing requirements and economy is foolish. We just have to work smarter than we have in the past.

Make no mistake, there are challenges, there have been declines and certainly for the outfitter markets offering the standard experiences, those declining U.S. numbers are still a reality. What we attempted to articulate to the industry in the article is that there are some encouraging trends to take advantage of and we need to adapt and evolve. In the north, we have to, as an industry, retire our traditional sense of entitlement and self depreciating negativity and start being positive, confident and aggresive because we do have world class outdoor experiences that should be on par with anything else on earth.

There is no doubt to any of us in the tourism industry that the U.S. market has declined in a post 911 security environment. Throw in an economic meltdown for good measure and you have a challenge. Fail to change your marketing tactics, research emerging trends or freshen up your product and you just add fuel to the fire. All of these things have combined to the reduction in the US market. One of the worst decisions we made as an industry after 2001 was curtailing our U.S. marketing campaigns and making generalized statements such as"why bother, they're not travelling." We simply, as an industry, didn't do our homework and we didn't shift our tactics and we didn't refresh our product.

However, a lot of U.S. residents are still travelling in general and although not in the same volumes as before, the fact that there are over 11 million passport holders in our key US border states and over 75 million nationally, one thing is certain....There are still a lot of people looking for experiences beyond their borders.

Its incumbent on us in the industry to reach these avid, affluent and educated travel markets more effectively than in the past. Selling the same thing in the same channels through the same marketing model as we did for the past 40 years doesn't work and we, as a region, have to make some changes to what we have, how we sell it and who we reach.

In 2009, when US travel to Canada was down 9.2%, U.S. traffic through Thunder Bay declined by approximately only 1%. In other words, we were largely unaffected. We lost some traditional hunting and fishing markets but gained new markets in touring and soft adventure. We did this by shifting tactics and focusing on avid markets in State capitals and being more aggressive in web and earned media through an experiential targeted approach. By reaching markets with higher percentages of government and supporting service employees - people who are less likely to lose disposable income in recessions - we were able to find some degree of success.

US traffic through Pigeon River remained steady this year for the first 4 months and while a dip in May has us watching closely, we've been told anecdotally by area hoteliers and attractions, that they are seeing the US market rebound modestly in the summer months. We can hope that this trend continues but it will require vigilance on our part in understanding the trends, knowing the consumer and reaching them effectively with good quality, high value trophy experiences that are relevant to their desires.

Some simple tips to remain successful in attracting the U.S. market.

1. Know Your customer. Who are they, where are they from and what they want to experience

2. Research - understand travel motivators. The Ministry of Tourism has some fantastic data for free on their website to help you identify the travel trends. www.tourism.gov.on.ca

3. Market effectively. In a digital age, you can reach markets globally and more cost effectively than ever before and its critical that those in the industry feel comfortable using the web, managing their content to keep it current, utilizing social media and it can start with simple things like responding to emails. Its also important to track your marketing to know what works and what doesn't.

4. Be Relevant. Offer people a experience that they seek. Times change and so do people's desires and expectations. It important to evolve with them.

5. Quality and Value. There is nothing wrong with charging what an experience is worth but make sure the visitor goes away happy, refers you to others and returns. Things like clean accommodation, good food, exceptional customer service and groomed properties go a long way. A gallon of paint, a lawn mower and a smile don't cost a lot but can have an impact.

6. Build critical partnerships. We're all in this together and we all play a role in encouraging visitors to choose our area for their experience. Even Thunder Bay, for its size and tourism budget, relies on effective tourism partners throughout the Northwest to help reach our markets effectively. Just look at the Canada's Great Outdoors program this year as an example. When we all work together and pool resources around a common goal or experience, we all benefit.

7. Be patient. Even modest gains in the beginning is positive and its important to build upon these successes year after year.

April Hotel Performance Shows Continued Rebound in Local Segment

2010-06-15T05:45:00.000-07:00

April continues to show a rebound in the North American travel market with another month of modest increases in the local hotel occupancy scene.

According to the latest PKF National Market Report, Thunder Bay's April occupancy rate was 68.2% up 1.6 points from April 2009's high of 66.6%. REVPAR for April was up 3.8% to $65.28 from $62.88 a year ago.

The Ontario April average occupancy rate rose 3.7% to 57.5% with REVPAR increasing 10% to $69.25. This growth was largely the result of a rebound in the GTA markets although smaller markets reported some positive results in a mixed marketplace.

April's modest gains was largely the result of increased corporate travel to the city. It was a month with few notable sport tourism events and is typically a slower leisure travel month.

We provide these updates as an information source to our local tourism partners locally and encourage our tourism partners to contact PKF directly at www.pkfcanada.com for more detailed reports that pertain to their business planning exercises.

Toronto Star Reveals Readers' Love of Thunder Bay

2010-06-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Toronto Star readers like Thunder Bay. They really like us.

Alright, an old Sally Field quote aside, Thunder Bay got a great little mention in this past weekend's Toronto Star Travel section. They have been asking their readers what their favorite Canadian place is and they responded. Thunder Bay was up there with Tofino and PEI....Not bad company to keep at all!

Even the headline hinted at a bit of a surprise at our placement. "Our Readers Love Tofino - and PEI And Even Thunder Bay"

while the article duly notes that Thunder Bay is not an obvious tourist centric community, its eclectic Finn culture and connection to Superior, Sleeping Giant and Canyon Country, combined with great family oriented museums like Fort William Historical Park, made for a memorable trip for one particular family.

And this supports our goal over the past 3 years. Raising the profile of the community beyond mill town status to a culturally curious community with deep ties to our natural environment and scenery around us and one that surprises visitors once they discover and explore.

That's exactly the type of visitor we're good at attracting - the Explorer. People that want that outdoor experience but than seek the culinary and cultural comforts and quirks of the urban community. They don't expect to find it prior to their first visit, but they do once they arrive.

This demonstrates how we've been able to weave our urban culture into the larger theme of the natural environment and gives us cause to keep pursuing this tack for the foreseeable future.

Lets celebrate each step forward, no matter how modest, in our community's tourism vision.

You can read the entire Toronto Star article here. http://www.thestar.com/travel/article/821385--our-readers-love-tofino-and-pei-and-even-thunder-bay

Charter Boat Operators Still Operating During Construction

2010-06-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

There's no doubt that the phase one waterfront transformation currently underway at Prince Arthur's Landing is going to be spectacular when finished. It is important, to remember, that during construction this year, some things of convenience we take for granted are going to have to be sacrificed.

We're pleased to report that the charter boat perators out of Marina Park are operating as usual through this year and we want to make sure our visitors and tourism partners know who they are and where they're operating out of during construction season.

Archie's Charters, our local Lake Superior fishing tour operator (and resident Up! Magazine celebrity) is operating on pier one on the second dock in to the right off the main pier. To access Archie's, enter the park at the Pearl Street Lights and check in with the security guard who will direct you to the boaters parking area to the right - by the fuel dock and boaters washrooms. Most of Archie's work is pre booked so its good to call ahead to make sure you're on the security list. Contact Archie at 1-807-473-9435 or http://www.archiescharters.com/

SailSuperior.com will be operating off of pier 3 this year, as they always have. With the regular parking area currently within the construction area, those wanting an unforgettable sail tour of the harbour will need to park at the parking lot closest to the Tai Chi Park and skate and BMX Plaza and walk along the trail, over the bridge and towards pier 3. Enter the Park at the north end overpass, turn left at the intersection and head past the play area and band shell to find the parking area. Its a bit of a walk but worth every step once you're aboard with Captain Gregory. For more info, contact http://www.sailsuperior.com/ or call 1-807-628-3333.

This is an exciting transitional year in our city's waterfront and the end result is going to be world class. We want to see our great tour boat operators continue to do well through the construction season, offering visitors to the community some spectacular angling and sailing experiences throughout what is going to be a warm summer.

I encourage all of our tourism partners to help promote our charter operators to their guests.

Pagoda Kicks off its 100th year of Providing Visitor Information

2010-06-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Pagoda Tourist Information Center opens for the summer season today, June 8th. Summer hours are Tuesday to Saturday from 10 AM to 6 PM daily.

The Pagoda turns 100 years old in 2010 and is the longest continually operating tourism information centre in Canada. One hundred years ago, the Port Arthur Board of Trade saw fit to build and operate a tourism information centre adjacent to the CN Rail Station, providing visitors to the City a place to gather information. With construction started in 1909 the centre opened in February 2010.

As part of Tourism week and our celebration of this centre and its milestone, join us on Friday June 11 from 11 AM to 3 PM for cake and coffee at the centre, look at some antique cars on display and re acquaint yourself with this spectacular piece of Thunder Bay's historical architecture.

March Hotel Occupancies Paint Optimistic Picture of Recovery

2010-06-08T05:52:00.001-07:00

Hotel occupancy levels in Thunder Bay continue to rebound after 2009's season and although our accommodation sector out performed most in North America last year, its a year everyone in the global tourism industry is happy to have behind them.

According to PKF Consulting data, March 2010 local occupancy levels were 69.3%, up 6.8% from 2009's 62.4%. This is significantly higher than the provincial average of 54.6%, up 3.1% from the previous March. RevPar was up a healthy 10.9% over 2009, averaging $66.86 versus $60.31 a year earlier.

Average daily rates were, however, down slightly (-0.1%) to $96.54 from $96.62 the previous March.

For the first quarter of 2010, average Q 1 occupancy levels in Thunder Bay were 60.5%, up from 57.3% a year earlier. Average daily room rates were up marginally to $95.53and RevPar (revenue per room) was up 5.9% to 57.75 from $54.53 in Q1 2009. All of this compares to a Provincial average of 50.5% occupancy or 0.6% growth. Once again, we're ahead of the trends.

We're attributing a lot of this growth to a healthy corporate travel sector, lead by mining exploration as well as a healthy MC and IT market in other sectors as well. March also saw a increase in participation in the Sleeping Giant Loppet and the city hosting both the North American Ice Yacht Championships and the Cavendish Cup CIS Men's University Hockey Championships, three events that helped increase march sport tourism performance. March's unusually warm weather, with spring break temps in the 20's, likely helped propel family leisure travel modestly as well.

Here's looking to a positive summer for tourism in Thunder Bay.

PKF Canada provides a wide range of services to the tourism and accommodation sectors and we credit them for the quoting of their data with respect to Thunder Bay performance. Tourism Thunder Bay quotes this data as an information service only. Analysis of the local trends is provided by Tourism Thunder Bay. We encourage tourism partners looking for a greater depth of accommodation data to contact PKF at www.pkfcanada.com.

Water Level Study Requests Local Tourism Industry Input

2010-06-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

This is an invitation and encouragement to participate in a study of the impact of fluctuating water levels in the Great Lakes on the tourism industry. The International Joint Commission (IJC) has commissioned the study.

Below is a link that will open an on-line survey questionnaire. Please click on the link, or cut and paste it into your web browserʼs address line, to participate in the study. Completing the questionnaire should take approximately 15 minutes. The deadline for submitting responses is June 18, 2010.

Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/57KRDYK

The Recreational Boating, Cruise Ship and Tourism Technical Work Group (TWG) of the IJC is attempting to identify the various components that best determine the impact of high and low water levels which are affected by different water release regimes from the St. Maryʼs River/Lake Superior and then attempt to measure how different release rules would impact recreation boaters, marinas, the cruise ship industry, tourist dependant
businesses and related industries. The social and economic impact of changing water levels on those businesses is of the utmost importance.

As part of its mandate, the TWG is assessing the physical aspects and financial ramifications that fluctuating water levels may have, or are having on tourism related businesses around the Great Lakes. While there is a lot of current data available directly related to the recreational boating and cruise ship industry, very little information is available on the general tourism industry which is estimated to make up 70-80% of the overall
tourism product on the Great Lakes.

The TWG has engaged the Tourism Company, a tourism industry planning and management consulting company (www.tourismco.com) to identify and assess the importance of this portion of the industry, including the impacts of water level fluctuations on tourism businesses in selected study areas. Thunder Bay is one of the study areas.

The survey questionnaire that you are being encouraged to complete (see link, above) is the primary tool being used to gather data for the assessment. The breadth and depth of the study conclusions will be directly related to the level of participation of Thunder Bay tourism businesses in the survey. Survey responses will be kept strictly confidential. In the reporting, responses will only be reported in aggregate. Businesses will not be identified with their responses.

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact:

DʼArcy McKittrick
Partner, the Tourism Company
Telephone: (705) 772 8425
Email: darcy@tourismco.com

If you have questions or comments about the study, please contact:
Glenn Warren
Study Co-Chair
Telephone: (705) 698 0523
Email: glenn.warren@persona.ca

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Superior Outdoors Summer 2010 Issue on the Stands

2010-05-31T09:05:00.001-07:00

Superior Outdoors (http://www.superioroutdoors.ca/) has just released its summer 2010 issue and is sure to get avid outdoor enthusiasts stoked about experiencing the Lake Basin's plethora of outdoor adventure experiences.

Launched several years ago, the magazine and website are produced by Thunder Bay's own Darren and Michelle McChristie and focus on the sustainable outdoor adventure experiences that the Lake basin offer up. What I personally love is that the magazine strives, and delivers, to cover the experiences of the entire lake and not just the Canadian North Shore.

This summer's issue enlightens readers about sailing through the National Marine Conservation Area, Hiking the Canadian Shield, Kayaking the Islands f Ney's Provincial Park and Road Tripping Superior's South shore beaches.

Look for a copy at your local bookstore or purveyor of magazines or visit their website. I'm sure a lot of visitors will want to keep this issue handy as they explore the shores of Superior this summer.

GREAT CANADIAN GIVEAWAY CONTEST CAMPAIGN

2010-05-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

Tourism Thunder Bay, in collaboration with Fort William Historical Park, the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium and the Thunder Bay Blues Festival, has launched the Great Canadian Giveaway Contest. Local residents are encouraged to call, email or text message all family and friends who live out of town and invite them to enter at www.VisitThunderBay.com

Two Contests have been created around two awesome signature events – the 9th Annual Thunder Bay Blues Festival July 9 – 11th at Marina Park and the Great Canadian Rendezvous Festival July 9 – 18th at Fort William Historical Park. Visitors can enter one or both contests. Both Prize Packages include accommodations, meals, free admission to the events and other activities and attractions in Thunder Bay.

The Thunder Bay Blues Festival is one of the largest and most anticipated events of the summer. Blues fans gather on the shores of Lake Superior to enjoy a spectacular line-up of well known international musicians and an all-star line-up of national and local talent.
And this year is no exception!

Plan your “”staycation” around the Great Canadian Rendezvous Festival at Fort William Historical Park. Ten exciting days of themed concerts featuring classic rock, jazz, bluegrass, and folk, plus camping, heritage events, good food and outdoor fun. Load the RV or pack the tent and celebrate summer.

“This campaign encourages locals to become ambassadors and invite their friends and family to visit Thunder Bay this summer with a fun contest theme that showcases just how much there is to see and do in our great city.” According to Tourism Manager Paul Pepe.

And there is no better time to consider a Great Canadian Getaway to Thunder Bay than during the summer. Come for one fabulous event and plan to stay for more! If you have the time, we have the perfect festive adventure to keep you entertained for a couple of days or a couple of weeks! Some favorites in the month of July that continue to entertain local and visitors include Summer in the Parks, Thunder Fest Super Weekend, Teddy Bear’s Picnic, Thunder Bay Dragon, Boat Race Festival and the Superior Youth Music Festival.

Join us for a Media Launch this Friday, May 28th at 11:00 am at Fort William Historical Park’s Visitor Centre

Tourism Thunder Bay Helps Tourism’s Front Line Professionals Rediscover the City

2010-05-26T12:05:00.001-07:00

Tourism Thunder Bay is helping tourism’s front line professionals discover Thunder Bay in a whole new way. The Tourism Division of the City, in partnership with the Prince Arthur Hotel and Lake Superior Visits, is providing a one day tour on Thursday May 27th of the city’s main attractions to educate visitor centre, hotel front desk, restaurant and tourism related retail partners.

Front line tourism professionals in hotels, visitor centers, gas stations and restaurants play an important role in promoting the City’s attractions and events to visitors who come into their businesses and often ask questions about what to see and do. Giving them the knowledge of all there is to see and do helps improve the visitor experience. The tour builds awareness and pride among the tourism professionals and allows them to network with each other. To sell Thunder Bay to the world, we have to start by selling it to ourselves.”

The day long motor coach tour, beginning at 8:30 AM at the Terry Fox Visitor Centre, will wind its way through the city exploring the communities major attractions and hidden gems. Lois Nuttal of Lake Superior Visits, a local tour operator, will share stories, legends and other information with the tour participants that reveal the diverse fabric of our culture and our connection to our natural environment. Lunch is sponsored by the Prince Arthur Hotel and ABC Embroidery is providing “Thunder Bay bucket list” tote bags. Given the overwhelming interest by the industry with this tour, Tourism Thunder Bay is considering additional opportunities to repeat the educational program throughout the spring.

A media opportunity is available at 8:30 AM at the Terry Fox Visitor Centre this Thursday, May 27th.

New Culinary Attraction Adds to the Bay & Algoma Flavour

2010-05-21T11:53:00.001-07:00

Thunder Bay's culinary offerings have expanded yet again with the addition of the Growing Season Juice Collective at 201 South Algoma.

This tiny gem opened in late 2009 and focuses on good healthy well prepared food using local and regional ingredients wherever possible. For me its quickly become a favorite lunch meeting location and Sunday afternoon treat. Serving local Thunder Oak gouda, Both Hands Bread, fresh greens and regionally sourced elk sausage, this culinary adventure makes a point of supporting the local food supply network and offers a unique option for locals and visitors alike.

Despite their name they offer a lot more than just fresh squeezed juice combinations. The food is fresh, the presentation fantastic and the atmosphere bright, cheery and Thunder Bay eclectic.

Growing Season represents the innovation, creativity and passion of Thunder Bay's new breed of youthful entrepreneurs, bringing something unique to market that celebrates our local culinary culture, adds to the choices for visitors and locals alike and contributes another story about who we are as a city.

The Growing Season is part of a transformation of the Bay and Algoma neighborhood, long anchored by the Hoito (which turns 100 years old this year). Villedge Art's relocation next door to the Growing Season, The Bean Fiend Coffee House, The Loop and Red Earth Imports join the company of established places like Madhouse, Scandanavian Home, Calico, Authentique, Finnish Book Store and Maier Hardware (yes, visitors even pop in there to find everything an old fashioned real hardware store should be). The community garden, across the street on the grounds of the old Cornwall School, is filled with volunteers every weekend growing crops locally. When we talk about becoming leaders in sustainability and being one of Canada's best outdoor cities, these gems all come together to help support that vision.

The Growing Season Juice Collective is a place every tourism professional in Thunder Bay should know and where we can all learn a lesson from. Judging by the crowds there every time I've visited, good word spreads quickly when great quality food, value, commitment to supporting local suppliers and funky atmosphere are combined.

The Growing Season can be found at 201 S Algoma St. and on Facebook. They're open 7 days a week from 11 AM to 4 PM

Parks Canada Is Looking for a Few Good People

2010-05-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that The Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area is one of the most significant recent catalyst investments in our local and regional tourism economy. Parks Canada is an essential and valued partner to us in our efforts to elevate our City to become regarded as one of North America's best outdoor community. The development of the NMCA will enhance our Lake Superior road and water based touring segments as well as creating new opportunities for "trophy" outdoor experiences that capitalize upon the significant ecological and geographical attributes of this part of the world.

As part of the development of the LSNMCA program, they are rolling out a number of critical positions and I'd like to share two of the newest positions released this morning. If you or someone you know is interested in applying, feel free to read on.

Applicants are advised to read the information and follow the instructions
carefully. Should you have any questions about the positions or the
competition process, please contact Emil Engler by e-mail
(emil.engler@pc.gc.ca) or phone (807-346-2900).

Promotion Officer III – PM03
Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area (LSNMCA)
Northern Ontario Field Unit
SELECTION PROCESS NO: 2010-PCA-NMCA-OC-11
LOCATION: Nipigon Ontario
SALARY: $54,676 - $58,912
TENURE: Indeterminate,
LANGUAGE: English Essential
CLOSING DATE: June 4, 2010:
OPEN TO: Persons employed by Parks Canada in the Northern Ontario Field
Unit, people living or working within a 160 kilometer radius of Nipigon,
Ontario and members of the Robinson Superior Treaty Group. Preference may
be given to qualified applicants who are members of the Robinson Superior
Treaty Group.

Visitor Experience Product Development Officer IV – PM04
Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area (LSNMCA)
Northern Ontario Field Unit
SELECTION PROCESS NO: 2010-PCA-NMCA-OC-10:
LOCATION: Nipigon Ontario
SALARY: $59,727 - $64,539
TENURE: Indeterminate,
LANGUAGE: English Essential
CLOSING DATE: June 4, 2010
OPEN TO: Persons employed by Parks Canada in the Northern Ontario Field
Unit, people living or working within a 160 kilometer radius of Nipigon,
Ontario and members of the Robinson Superior Treaty Group. Preference may
be given to qualified applicants who are members of the Robinson Superior
Treaty Group.

March and April Terry Fox Visitor Centre Stats Show Encouraging Activity

2010-05-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

March and April 2010 visitor numbers at the Terry Fox Visitor Information Center are encouraging and we hope they signal an increase in local visitation in 2010 and a recovery to what was a very challenging 2009 for the North American tourism economy.

2097 visitors used the facility in March 2010, up from 1443 in March 2009, a 31% jump. Of these users, 87% wwere Canadian, the majority from the Northwest region, 12% were from the US, primarily Minnesota and Wisconsin and 1% were international overseas.

In April, 2806 visitors used the facility, up from 2266 the previous April, an increase of 19%. 86% wer Canadian, 9% US and 5% overseas.

Obviously, being located on the Trans Canada and an almost obligatory overnight stop for cross Canada traffic, approximately 23% of visitors were seeking information on accommodation and food. 27% were visiting for recreational purposes, while 10% were visiting on business.

March and April are traditionaly shoulder season leisure market months for Thunder Bay and its encouraging to see the increases and range of activities bringing people to or through the community.

Have Your Say About Thunder Bay's Proposed New Multiplex.

2010-05-05T12:49:00.001-07:00

The City of Thunder Bay wants to hear from the community regarding a proposed new multiplex facility for the community.

The multiplex is proposed in the City's Renew Thunder Bay plan as a high priority major legacy project for the city of Thunder Bay over the next 5 years. Council has approved completion of a Phase 2 feasibility study to be conducted later in 2010. No other decisions regarding the project have been made and public input into the project is currently being sought.

In 2009, Deloitte and Touche completed a phase 1 economic impact study with respect to a new facility and concluded that the facility would bring significant economic benefits to the sport tourism, arts, hospitality and retail segments of the community. The preliminary construction costs would be approximately $60 million, generating $90 million in total local ecvonomic impacts and creating over 550 person years of employment in the construction phase. The report also looked at 10 comparable cities throughout North America that had recently built multi plex facilities.

From Tourism's perspective, a new multiplex would increase our competitiveness in attracting specific sport tourism events to the community as well as larger conferences that exceed our current capacity.

You can have your say at one of two public input sessions and online.

Thursday May 6, 2010
6:30 - 9:00 PM
Davinci Centre, Marco Polo Room
340 S Waterloo St

Thursday May 13, 2010
6:30 to 9:00 PM
Italian Cultural Centre. Main Hall
132 South Algoma St

If you can't make it to either session or want to add your input afterwards, visit www.thunderbay.ca/haveyoursay or www.facebook.com/TBayMultiplex

Thunder Bay Tourism Community Mourns the Passing of Hospitality Champion Tom Simpson.

2010-04-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

The Thunder Bay tourism community is mourning the loss of Tom Simpson, former General Manager of the Travelodge Airlane and Executive Chef at both the Valhalla and Victoria (Formerly Red Oak) Inns. Tom passed away Saturday April 3rd after a lengthy and courageous battle with cancer.

Tom had been a integral part of Thunder Bay's hospitality and culinary community since immigrating here from Scotland in the early 1990s. He was passionate and fiery and was was one of those people that helped raise our collective community's game as a culinary destination. His passion for cooking and entertaining friends and family was legendary in the culinary community.

I had the privilege of knowing Tom from my days at Fort William Historical Park and always appreciated his honesty, sincerity and great Scottish sense of humour. Tom, no doubt, left a great impression on everybody he met and even my wife, who only met him once briefly at a party 9 years back remembered him fondly for his sense of humour when she learned of his passing.

Tom is survived by his wife Anita, children Stephen and Laura and Stepchildren Daniel and Jenise.

A memorial service celebrating Tom's life will be held at Grace Church, 289 North Court Street, at 10:30 AM, Wednesday April 7th.

Here's raising a "wee dram" in your honour, Tom, from those of us at Tourism Thunder Bay.

Condolences can be made online at www.sargentandson.com

Tourism Thunder Bay Welcomes John Cameron to our Tourism Team

2010-04-06T08:20:00.001-07:00

Our team at Tourism Thunder Bay is pleased to welcome a new addition that completes our staffing compliment.

John Cameron assumes the duties of Tourism Development Officer effective today, April 6th and will be overseeing product development, capacity building and sport tourism files. John brings an immense amount of experience with him to the role and has held positions within the Ministry of Tourism (Fort William Historical Park and the Resource Based Tourism Unit), Ministry of Culture and Recreation, City of Thunder Bay Recreation Division and most recently, the Lakehead Region Conservation Authority. John is well known in the local sports community and is an occasional contributor to the sports section of the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal.

Tourism Thunder Bay is fortunate to have a dedicated product development position and it reinforced the importance of tourism in the community as an economic driver. John will be working on touring development projects, Rails to Trails project, sport tourism bid development, Premier Ranked Destination Framework implementation plans, community tourism capacity building exercises and other initiatives that increase the opportunities for new visitor experiences to enter the marketplace locally.

John can be reached at 625-3231 or jcameron@thunderbay.ca

Join us in welcoming John to the tourism Thunder Bay team.

Lake Superior Magazine is Looking for the Lake's Best Burger Joints

2010-03-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

This is a chance for Thunder Bay's tourism and culinary partners and foodies alike to put their best foot forward and brag a little.

Lake Superior Magazine (http://www.lakesuperior.com/)
is looking for the Lake's best burger joints and we know Thunder Bay has some of the best around. When I heard about this story idea, I got thinking about my own personal favorites and that its time for a little taste testing road trip around the city.

I love a good burger and find that whatever city I travel to for work or play, I have to have a burger at least once. Burger bars are the new "in" culinary treat and the rise of them in North America speaks to our desire for simple foods done exceptionally well.

What's your favorite? Is it the famed Stanley Burger? A slider from McKeller Confectionery, Hodder Greek's or the Westfort Coney Island? Cronos Cafe's hand patted burger? Have you tried one of the decadent burgers on Caribou's lunch menu? Do you have a secret burger place you want to share with others?

This is a chance for our local culinary industry to brag a little so let Lake Superior Magazine, one of our great partners in promoting Lake Superior tourism experiences, know all about it.

You can visit Lake Superior Magazine's Facebook fan page or email Leslie Meyer at lm@lakesuperior.com by April 9th with your pick for Thunder Bay's best burger joint.

I'd be remiss if I didn't share my own burger recipe and love of all things food with you. Nothing beats a home made burger grilled on the back deck. This one is my all time favorite burger recipe to share.

1 pound locally prepared ground beef - lean
1 pack onion soup mix
1 egg
Worcestershire Sauce
minced basil - locally produced fresh is best but dry or pesto works too.
bread crumbs
seasoning salt and cracked pepper to taste

mix it up and press into patties of whatever size fits in your mouth.

Now the toppings-and this is what really makes it. Local melted gouda and sliced elk summer sausage (both available at the Thunder Bay Country market), a pesto mayonnaise (easy to blend yourself) and homemade pickled eggplant on a fresh Roma Bakery bun (or grilled on a panini press on garlic buttered sourdough rye). Voila!

Here's to good eatin' locally!

City of Thunder Bay Develops a New Cultural Plan

2010-03-29T08:23:00.001-07:00

The City of Thunder Bay's Culture and Recreation Division is developing Thunder Bay's first formal cultural plan and they're looking for your input.

Tourism is one of the seven drivers identified to building a successful cultural community. Our culture is diverse and defines who we are as a community. Its also intimately woven into our larger mission to become regarded as Canada's Best Outdoor City and it supports the principals of sustainable tourism by promoting activities that not only conserve our natural environment but bring economic benefits to the community. Our cultural industries, including artisans, culinary, and events, comprise a formidable element of our local economy.

Our culture is in our music, art, culinary, attractions, events, and even sports. It defines us as unique and rounds out the visitor experience, even when its not the main travel motivator. Visitors may travel here for an outdoor experience like fishing or kayaking, a conference or a sport tournament but its the food, the little artisan shops, or a great local band they heard in a bar that can make their experience extraordinary.

On Monday March 29th from 6:30 to 9 pm at the Community Auditorium, local tourism partners and community members as a whole have a chance to learn about the process in more detail. This event is open to the public.

On March 30th, from 9 AM to 5 PM, an all day workshop for Thunder Bay's cultural partners will help define this strategy in more detail. It may not be too late to register for the March 30th session but registration is required. contact Callie Hemsworth at chemsworth@thunderbay.ca

Opportunities Abound to Promote Your Experience At NorthernOntario.travel/ThunderBay

2010-03-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

Tourism Thunder Bay is wrapping up its second consecutive year of a great partnership with OTMPC with respect to content management on the Northernontario.travel portal and we're looking for itinerary, bundle, story and photo submissions from our local partners for year 3, starting April 1st.

We've been developing the content to date, creating and linking experiences together to showcase unique options for visitors. However, this is truly an industry partnership and we'd like to see more content coming in.

The whole idea behind this is to increase search engine traffic to Thunder Bay experiences and give potential visitors ideas and suggestions that make their vacation experience complete while here.

Here are just a few of the categories we're looking for content around.

Bundles - visitor experiences that are complimentary to each other, examples of which can be museums, outdoor recreation, music or culinary tours.

Itineraries - starting with a core destination experience such as a festival, kayaking, or angling, than adding a accommodation and culinary options together.

Stories - We want to hear your favorite travel story about Thunder Bay. It could be from one of your guests or even your own.

We want to see tourism experience providers working together with accommodation providers, culinary and cultural events and attractions to create some great new vacation ideas that we can post...and generate more buzz for Canada's best outdoor city.

Just email your bundle and itinerary suggestions to ppepe@thunderbay.ca and we'll get them up there. For photos and stories, go to www.mytbay.ca and upload them through that channel.

Strong 2010 Start to Visitor Centre Traffic Reported

2010-03-25T11:09:00.001-07:00

Tourism Thunder Bay's Terry Fox Visitor Center has reported some positive results in visitation in the first two months of 2010 and it follows a 2009 that saw a 4% growth in visitation despite being the worse travel year in recent memory for the Canadian industry in general.

These winter months are typically slower for visitation and so the numbers shown are traditionally lower than the summer, where daily traffic to the centre can reach to 400 to 600 persons.

Registrations were 468 in January and 676 in February, a 9% increase over the same period in 2009. In January, 392 (84%) were Canadian, 49 (10%) were U.S. and 27 (6%) were from overseas. During February, 582 (86%) were Canadian, 82 (12%) were U.S. and 12(2%) were overseas. Our winter Canadian Visitors were largely from Ontario and Manitoba while U.S. visitors were overwhelmingly from Minnesota.

The door counters at the Center measured 907 and 1149 for January and February respectively. This represents a 7% and 13% increase respectively. The counters represent people entering the visitor center information areas but who don't choose to fill in their travel information and motivations.

Thunder Bay Participates in Seatrade Cruise Shipping Miami's International Gathering

2010-03-25T10:26:00.001-07:00

The arrival of the MV Clelia II at Pool 6 last summer signaled the return of passenger shipping to the downtown north core waterfront and complimented the significant investment in our waterfront currently underway.

While vessels have been coming into the city since 1997, the future for great lakes cruise shipping holds tremendous opportunity for growth. With a total economic impact of $592 000 from the twelve Clelia visits last year, cruise shipping has the opportunity to offer big returns for the community and positively impact many small businesses in a relatively short port stay. It may have only represented less than 1% of our total tourism economy last year but the importance extend beyond the actual monetary value. Cruise shipping elevates our community's reputation as a culturally enriched unique, exotic and high calibre destination. Aligning with this reputation brings tremendous positive attention to our community and region. Bluntly stated, cruise shipping is sexy.

I recently returned from attending the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Miami (http://www.cruiseshippingmiami.com/) conference. This annual gathering, the 26th such event, is the home port of the global cruise shipping industry. It was an opportunity to spend four days in the company of two thousand delegates and thousands of industry exhibitors and travel trade specialists, sharing experiences and learning best practices from some of the world's best. While our industry is in its infancy, caters to smaller expedition type vessels and is small when compared to Miami, Port Canaveral, Alaska and BC, the lessons learned are still valuable and can be applied to our own experiences and vision.

I had the chance to take in the State of the Industry panel discussion, lead by the CEOs of six of the world's top cruise lines, as well as workshops and panel discussions on upscale markets, global source and deployment strategies, terminal design and management, expedition and discovery cruising, and more.

Overall, the industry has a lot of growth ahead of it. The industry expects to globally carry upwards of 14.1 million passengers this year, an increase of 6.4% over last year. While last year's capacity seems to have fared well, it came at heavily discounted rates. The expedition and discovery markets, our best bet, expects positive future growth projections. The global market, comprised of only 9000 berths spread among 53 ships, is very small but running at high occupancy levels, indicating potential growth opportunities for new builds in the future.

In addition to our delegate status, we were also there as members of the Great Lakes Cruising Coalition, a collective of 24 port cities and marine partners working together across the border to build a viable industry that diversifies, not only the tourism industry, but the Great Lakes marine industry in general. Being the only freshwater destination at the show helps us stand out, generating a constant stream of interest from other delegates, exhibitors and visitors to the show.

Lake Superior has tremendous potential to grow with respect to the expedition and discovery cruising markets. With the National Marine Conservation Area, Isle Royale, Apostle Islands and other areas of National and International importance, combined with unique communities and shore excursion options, we have to start promoting us as a place as exotic as anywhere else on earth.

for this year, we're looking at 10 return visits from the Clelia II while 2011 and 12 promise two visits by a larger vessel in each year and the possibilities of several other lines currently evaluating the market demand.

We have a long way to go to build cruise shipping for our region but the good news is that we're out of the gate, are starting to make ourselves known on the international stage and developing some great innovative bi national partnerships for the future.