U.S. Visitor Traffic to Thunder Bay on the Increase This Year

It is a pretty significant fact that we are a forty five minute drive from the U.S. border and a source market in excess of three hundred and thirty million people.  Despite conditions of the past decade, the U.S. market continues to be important to us.  However, this market has declined over the past decade in a world of security and economic issues, coupled with inconsistent marketing investments to keep our region top of mind.

In light of the slow US economy, passport requirements, border security, high fuel prices and an at par currency, you'll have to understand if we're a little giddy today in the Tourism Thunder Bay office.

The second quarter border crossing statistics came in this week and to the end of June 2012, U.S. visitors to Thunder Bay through the Pigeon River border crossing have increased by 3.5% or about 1068 persons.  While not explosive year over year growth, its slow and steady as the old tortoise versus hare fable goes, and that's what wins the race. 

While same day traffic declined, it was the important overnight visits that increased, improving hotel performance in what is already a strong urban market.  These longer stays translate into increased economic impacts for our community and region and speak to a desire for avid travellers to explore in greater depth. From an economic impact perspective, this translates to approximately $370 596 in new visitor spending and a total economic impact including the multiplier effect of about $592 953.  Overall, that's a pretty good return early on even before the critically important July and August travel data is reported.  By about late October, we'll have a good sense of the true impact of the new investments being made. 

With approximately $1.1 million in new regional tourism marketing investments being made across Northwestern Ontario in the fishing, hunting, broad outdoors, convention, sports tourism and motor touring segments, its encouraging to see some early wins.  From our early indicators, the majority of this upswing is related to touring and outdoor adventure segment campaigns specifically into the United States totalling approximately $275 000.  This included the popular "Ride Lake Superior" motorcycle program, enhanced broad outdoor campaigns targeting Minnesota and Wisconsin and wider reaching US avid outdoor media channels.  We've also been able to host far more media familiarization trips, and build new relationships with US media such as Northern Wilds, Lake Superior Magazine and AAA media channels to grow interest in the area.  Tying the natural environment to the highway corridors is critical to maximizing visitor attraction.  Most travellers are outdoor enthusiasts but very few want to really rough it.  trails and waterfalls, birding, beaches and so forth are all huge draws but visitors want a good meal and comfy bed too.  communicating the epic-ness of Lake Superior - and our hundreds of thousands of other lakes too - will be critical to growing our markets.

The majority of the Northwest's angling traffic flows through Fort Frances so we'll be watching those numbers closely as well and reporting on the broader impacts.

The regional approach to partnership building is critical to continuing to build on these early successes and together with partners like Sunset Country Travel Association, Algoma Kinnewabi Travel and our friends in Northern Minnesota, we'll continue to work together to make the visitor pie bigger for everyone by focusing on epic experiences worth the distance. 

After all, how far would you travel for the perfect outdoor vacation?

BECOMING BICYCLE INCLUSIVE GOOD FOR TOURISM IMAGE

Cycle tourism, both the human and petrol powered kind - are both increasing in popularity across North America and Thunder Bay has the assets to capitalize on both in big ways.

Today, I'm going to talk about the human powered one.  Bicycle tourism is on the rise for a number of reasons.  A greater awareness of living a healthy lifestyle, rising fuel prices and greater awareness of avid travellers to experience destinations in ways that are harmonious with he natural environment.

Thunder Bay's investments in bicycle infrastructure in the past few years is to be applauded.  The active transportation strategy and the work of the city's own Adam Krupper is helping move this forward in a big way.   While it has not always been easy, anything worth doing never is.  Its part of Thunder Bay's transformation from car loving culture to one that is very rapidly evolving into a hip and eclectic urban culture.  (Don't get me wrong as I myself love my automobiles too).  The city is finding its place and its an exciting time to be here if you're in the community and economic development fields.

The creation of dedicated bicycle lanes began two years ago to much acclaim and a bit of criticism from a minority of the motoring public struggling with the idea of being attentive at the wheel and following traffic lines.  The lanes help define shared road space and ingrain drivers with the awareness that sharing the road with bicycles is important and the law.  This network of lanes and sharrows has expanded in each of the programs two subsequent years and we're now seeing it link the main routes together as well as link to the network of recreational trails.  The lanes make sense where we have wider than average roadways and where creating dedicated recreational paths just is not financially nor logistically feasible.

This past week, our active transportation strategy made a great link to our cultural scene with the unveiling of the new bike rack program.  Local businesses and organizations can purchase bike racks that feature artwork created by the local visual arts community, providing dedicated bike lock up space, promoting the local arts community and further building awareness in bike use.

The work in recent years to map out the single track at Shuniah Mines and promotes cycling on the city's ever expanding recreational trail system also add to our critical cycling asset inventory.  Bike racks installed on the entire fleet of city transit buses beginning in 2009 also add to our cycle friendly environment.

When one looks around, the private sector investments in cycle tourism are pretty impressive as well. We have businesses like Nipigon's Epic Adventures and Thunder Bay's Superior Bike Tours, we have Superior Pedicabs and retailers like Petries and Rollin Thunder offering bike rentals.  The Thunder Bay Cycling Club even has online information catering to bike visitors and the Black Sheep Mountain Bike Club are widely known for their promotion of that segment of riding.

In the bigger picture,. these investments say "welcome" to the cycling visitor.  In a community whose tourism mission statement is to be regarded as Canada's Best Outdoor City to attract the 62% of North Americans who seek outdoor adventures as their travel motivator, these investments compliment the tourism strategy wonderfully.

This all leads to the next question. Who is the cycling visitor anyway?

Typically, 50% are between 30 and 50 years of age, 46% have an income over $75 000 annually and 51% are female. The cycling market includes leisure families, recreational riders, mountain biking, touring cyclists.  Economic impact in Niagara is $148 per person excluding accommodation which can add anywhere from $50 to $75 per person.  The cyclist wants a nice meal, a comfortable bed and unique attractions to stop at along their riding tour.   Naturally, they want their bikes, often expensive - to be safely and securely cared for. In Quebec, Cycle or "velo" tourism contributes $134 million annually to the provincial economy.

Toronto, Ottawa and Niagara Falls have all been promoting cycle tourism for some time and currently, Sault Ste Marie and Sudbury are working on a connecting link.  Closer to home, the Kinghorn line, formerly a CN rail corridor over 100 km long is been studied by a consortium of partners lead by the Trans Canada Trail group for the transition to a four season trail network connecting Thunder Bay to Nipigon.  The route has incredible potential, not only for its sweeping course through the boreal forest but also for the inclusion of the pass lake trestle, adding an incredibly unique scenic element to the route.  Now that spring is here, its not that hard to find bikes on cars, trucks, SUVs and RVs all over the city many with out of Province plates.  Its simply a growing trend we need to accommodate.

Sadly, our Provincial Ministry of Transportation in the Northwest has not included shoulders of any kind along the TransCanada in its enhancement projects nor has been willing to entertain parallel bike routes along right of ways - in essence taking a bigger picture approach to the corridors as transportation corridors and not just automobile corridors.  A current master transportation study for the North hopefully begins to address this and look at transportation more holistically moving into the future.

We're looking forward to the development of a regional cycle tourism strategy and seeing further investments, both public and private sector - made over the long term to strengthen our tourism brand as a premier outdoor city that values authentic and fun visitor experiences. It all adds to increased value in our brand and more visitors tot he community over the long run.

New Motorcycle Touring Trip Planner Featured on Motorcycle.com

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.

Get Ready For the Motorcycle Market!

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.

Thunder Bay Being Promoted at the 2010 Toronto Motorcycle Show

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)

Emerging Group Tour Markets Key to Building Leisure Traffic

Thunder Bay is fortunate to be situated on the world's largest lake and as such, is part of one of the continent's best driving routes and most spectacular boating experiences. With the individual leisure travel market becoming more challenging to attract, its important to harness our position the Lake Superior Circle tour to attract the emerging leisure markets-what I refer to as the semi independent group travel.

Simply put, these are the folks travelling by individual automobiles, motorcycles, RVs and boats but in groups-some numbering in the hundreds. Often these people belong formally, or informally to a group specific to RV, motorcycle brand or automobile style. We all see them throughout the summer months and we've been getting them here for years. In 2008, Thunder Bay played host to the Wally Byam Air streamers group, this year, a large group of U.S. RV owners and in 2010, the Miata Enthusiasts of Upper Peninsula (Michigan) will be bringing in excess of 30 cars to the city for two days. As a new owner of an older miata myself, I've quickly become immersed in the group ownership culture and have come to understand first hand, the economic impact these touring groups make on a region. The itinerary and pics from the 2005 run are available at http://rainsux.dyndns.org/mals/ for those interested. If you are a Miata owner, stay tuned as new information is posted on that site for the 2010 run.

On the motorcycle touring side, Larry Lage of Excalibur Motorcycle Works (www.excaliburmotorcycleworks.com) has been instrumental in helping us understand the motorcycle touring market and with respect to boating, we communicate with the Great Lakes Cruising Club (www.glcclub.com) to promote the area to the thousands of boaters who live around the lake and the tens of thousands who live elsewhere on the Great Lakes.

Opportunities exist to better target our marketing towards these groups, using both online social media as well as building partnerships with local enthusiasts groups who play host to these groups. Its something we have worked on in the past two years and will be doing so more formally in the future. Its good for local event organizers to know that bringing in groups often ensures special rates on hotel rooms, meals and attraction admissions can be offered by many local and area tourism partners.

Attracting these groups is important on a number of fronts. As previously mentioned, its easy to reach out to them AND we are on one of the best scenic touring routes in North America. However, those who motorcycle, RV or drive sports cars are more likely to be avid travellers. They seek out the driving experience, they love to socialize with like minded individuals and are more likely to travel even when the economy is weak. They are generally of a higher education, more affluent and adventurous. In our case, we have a lot of enthusiasts in the community who act as advocates and organizers, helping reach their peers across North America more directly than we can on our own.

Tourism Thunder Bay has been providing support to such local groups who host. For those who want to host groups, Tourism Thunder Bay provides magazines, delegate packages and even the use of our roll up displays to help promote the city. Our meeting and convention planner has even been known to help source out prizes for groups who set up gatherings here. The City's event central can help provide one stop shopping for event organizers with respect to information on road closure processes, permit requirements and even equipment the City of Thunder Bay can provide to event organizers.

For 2010 we are currently evaluating the implementation of a potential sponsorship program to help sponsor some of the financial costs of hosting motor touring groups in our city.

If you are a Thunder Bay or area motor touring enthusiast who wants to host a group here, feel free to contact Rose Marie Tarnowski, our Meetings and Convention Planner at rtarnowski@thunderbay.ca and she will be happy to discuss venues, attractions and other related information.

photo courtesy of MEUP