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.

Small Businesses Playing an Increasing Role as Tourism Ambassadors

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.

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

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!

New Marketing Sales Kit Helps Tourism Businesses Grow

Recently, we released our 2010 Media partnership sales kit to help our tourism industry partners reach new markets effectively.

Our 2010 Sales Kit provides an overview of print and online marketing opportunities that partners can purchase to help strengthen their position in the marketplace and drive new business to their doors. Our marketing shift towards experience based online and print media has allowed us to raise the profile of the city as one of Canada's Great Outdoor Cities, weaving spectacular and iconic outdoor landscapes with unique and fascinating culinary and cultural urban experiences, a move that is generating international media attention and allowing us to buck some of the downward trends facing the Canadian tourism industry this year.

Our annual Thunder Bay Experience magazine has catapulted in popularity as a must have resource for visitors and local residents alike and is credited by many of our tourism partners for increasing visitation and revenues. with 120 000 copies in print, distributed throughout the Lake Superior basin and over 40 000 downloads annually, its become the most important tourism fulfillment resource for the city and area.

Our newly revamped www.visitthunderbay.com site has replaced our 1-800 number as the main call to action for visitors seeking more information. With over 425 000 visitors using the site last year to help them plan their trip. Free listings and paid banner advertising is available and some of our partners report anywhere from 15000 to 30 000 click throughs annually from our site to theirs.

A sales kit has been mailed out to over 400 local tourism partners and the order forms are available online. However, if you want to learn more about advertising opportunities, contact Rose Marie Mancusa, our Marketing Coordinator, at rmancusa@thunderbay.ca