Motorcycle Touring Around Superior Gets a Boost

Motorcycle touring around Lake Superior is gaining a lot more marketing and partnership attention over the past year with the development of the "Ride Lake Superior" initiative. With the movement moving very quickly in early 2011 from an RTO driven capacity building exercise to a full on bi national development and marketing partnership, this project has galvanized the entire lake basin's tourism industry and fostered some great new dialogue and partnership discussions across borders.

Recently the program gained a huge boost from our good friends and partners at Lake Superior Magazine. Paul, Cindy, Konny and Bob and their entire team recently featured motorcycle touring in their latest issue of the magazine in an article aptly titled "Looping The Lake". The Lake Superior Circle Tour has been around as a brand for well over forty years but its only been recently that its specifically targeted the motorcycle segment. Its was critical not to create a confusing or competing brand in the process but to bring in partners with strong leadership ties to the brand and create a complimentary brand that speaks specifically to the needs and wants of the rider. We quickly found enthusiasm from Lake Superior Magazine, the leaders in promoting the lake and keepers of the Circle Tour brand.

The article is an excellent in depth look at the lake's epic touring route and what it means to riders and the industry. An sidebar article also highlights the Ride Lake Superior initiative. On a personal note, the article references my hidden passion for riding as I've been collecting and storing gear at my office for some time - hiding it from my wife who believes(and probably rightfully so) that my attention deficit disorder does not compliment motorcycle ownership. While I've never held a licence, I used to ride around in farmer's fields as a teen and this year I'm going for my licence and taking the course.

Each region around the lake draws from a specific source market. Thunder Bay from the northwest and western Canada, North Shore of Minnesota from the Twin Cities, Michigan's upper Peninsula from Detroit and Chicago and the Sault Ste Marie area from Southern Ontario. These are all huge markets to tap into and its unlikely any single region would have the resources or success to tap into all of them individually. To the motorcycle visitor, they will be drawn into various starting points around he lake and travel through each area, extending the visitor experience and impacts to individual communities. Attracting ten thousand new riders to the lake can result in up to sixty thousand new hotel room nights, tens of thousands of meals and attraction person visits. The new economic impact can easily reach upwards of $9 million annually for the lake basin's tourism economy. Given that approximately 85 visitors create one full time job in tourism, the impacts become even more important.

The initiative is important in that it unifies the individual tourism regions around the lake to foster the growth of a specific travelling demographic that is on the rise and knows no geo political boundaries. Its an important catalyst in improving tourism communication across borders and aims to grow a segment in a way that makes the pie bigger for the entire industry. Water is our largest tourism asset and Lake Superior is the nucleus of that. Opportunities exist to grow the bi national partnerships, collaborate and share knowledge and resources to create a much larger impact. Having allies like Lake Superior Magazine makes the process that much easier.

This year, Ride Lake Superior partners will be expanding the marketing reach, attracting motorcycle journalists to the the region and continuing to provide local and regional training for the tourism industry on becoming "motorcycle ready"

Pick up a copy of Lake Superior Magazine or check out their site. If you are planning on doing the epic ride, visit RideLakeSuperior.com for trip planning information to make your journey one sweet epic adventure.

Ride Lake Superior Hits the Road Running

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.

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

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.