Public Art and Green Scapes Add to the Aesthetics of the Community

In the past couple of years, public art and green space improvements have started to play a bigger role in the evolution of Thunder Bay's cultural, social and economic fabric. From the creation of the Clean Green and Beautiful initiative, with a mandate to improve the aesthetics of the community, to increased exposure of organizations such as Eco Superior and various community arts groups, Thunder Bay's cultural and economic revolution is exciting.

This directly impacts Thunder Bay's tourism economy positively in that these initiatives improve the aesthetics of the community and speak to its cultural roots. These elements are important to making first impressions on visitors and even influence their decision to extend their stay or return. People want to visit where there is positive energy. Its a simple as that.

Public Art at Marina Park, murals within the downtown cores, the raised gardens added to the water street bus terminal and the soon to be started public green space at the newly renovated City Hall are all positive contributors to improving the look of the city and increasing the urban "vibe", that sense of positive energy that residents and visitors alike absorb. These initiatives are also considered part of the city's sustainable tourism strategy by creating exciting public green spaces and creating opportunities for the local arts community.

Pool 6 is a prime example. Docking a 5 star expedition cruise ship at a former industrial site currently under environmental assessment has posed challenges. Without the ability to complete permanent infrastructure such as landscaping and paving until the outcome of the assessment, we have cut the grass, installed planters along the dock, painted and installed welcome gateway signage. We've erected a tipi to celebrate our Anishnawbic Roots and have actually encouraged visitors to stroll through the spray painted rubble piles to take pictures of the "graffiti art", a public and impromptu art display that has actually become an attraction for the vessel passengers rather than a perceived eyesore to us.

While the city and a collection of like minded organizations have lead the way, there is a role for everyone. It always irks me to read people complaining about the "costs" of these initiatives rather than seeing them as investments in community development and its sad to see such short sightedness from folks who are all too often, the last to roll up their sleeves and do their part to make the city better. Who doesn't want to see a city become more attractive? Yes, the city has areas that need attention and guess what? So does every other small, medium and large city in North America right now. We've seen investments made in eradicating derelict buildings and allowing lands to become redeveloped. We see public and community gardens springing up and we're seeing more people doing their part. My job takes me to all corners of North America annually and I can honestly say, we're ahead of so many other cities.

In the tourism industry, there is so much that each of us can do to improve the "vibe" for visitors. Planting gardens and trees and commissioning local artists to paint murals that celebrate our heritage. It can also include bundling a night's stay at a hotel with local cuisine and a trip to Magnus theatre, the symphony or a stop at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Improving your business's green aesthetics does not have to be costly either. A trip to a garden center and a staff planting day are all it takes to do ones part.

Exciting times are upon us in the City and the tourism industry has a chance to make its mark on improving the cultural vibe of the City. There has been a lot of work done and a lot more to do but the city current economic and cultural environment have allowed it to become one big blank canvas with room for more creative and positive influences to shine.

June 2009 Terry Fox Visitor Center Stats Released

Visitation to the Terry Fox Visitor Information center in June 2009 saw a 10% decline over June 2008, slipping to 3495 from 3888 the previous year.

Most of the decline was from domestic (-10%) and overseas travel (-33%). domestic visitors declined from 3075 to 2780 while overseas traffic plummeted from 224 to 150.

U.S. traffic, however was not as seriously affected, dropping only 4%, from 589 in 2008 to 565 in 2009.

However, increased web usage and visitor magazine circulation may indicate different sources of information gathering habits for visitors to the community.

New Tool for Tourism Businesses to Become Greener

Doing business in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable way is a lot more than just a good marketing and public relations move - its also good for your long term bottom line.

Earthwise Thunder Bay has just released a new tool to help local businesses become greener in their operations. The Net Zero business guide to green business is available in print and online to provide an assessment and implementation tool to encourage the business community to see the benefits of going green. There has been a myth that going green is not necessarily good for an individual businesses bottom line but ultimately, reduction in utility costs and the implementation of sound practices reduces overhead and can actually attract new clients.

Being environmentally responsible does not mean we give up on developing and promoting the activities we hold dear or are a staple of our tourism economy. It does not mean we stop snowmobiling, ATVing, dirt biking or other activities that on the surface, appear to be contradictory to the principals of environmentally responsible tourism. It means we adapt practices to reduce emissions and employ practices to the best of our abilities, to minimize impacts. For angling, it means the use of newer energy efficient outboards and self imposed conservation limits on angling and ensuring the longevity of breeding stock. As a convertible touring enthusiast myself, I don't have to give my passion. My contribution and that of others in my leisure group is to ensure our autos are tuned properly, time pressure is appropriate and other practices to maximize fuel mileage. While out on tours, we support local restaurants serving local foods and promote parks and recreational areas for stops and destinations.

Tourism Thunder Bay has adopted the principals of sustainable tourism as a foundation statement and believes that creating partnerships in sustainable tourism will elevate the community's image within the tourism industry itself and ultimately to the consumer base that is looking at environmentally and socially sustainable destinations in which to take their next vacation, conference or sport event. After all, we are one of Canada's best outdoor cities and to become an urban leader in sustainable tourism places us in a unique strategic position.

You can learn more about Net Zero and what you can do at http://www.earthwisethunderbay.com/

VisitThunderBay.com Sees Massive Traffic Increase in 2009

Having a aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate web presence supported by great search engine optimization and linked to leading edge social web media is integral to survival and Tourism Thunder Bay's central marketing hub, http://www.visitthunderbay.com/ is playing a key role in helping the city's tourism economy weather the changes in the tourism environment.

The launch of a new easier to navigate site in March of 2009 has played a key role. There are a number of reasons for this impressive statistic and includes the new easier to navigate site. However, it goes far beyond this and is also the result of web based media campaigns driving traffic to the site, improved search engine optimization and innovative online contests designed to introduce users to the information resources in a fun way. We've also encouraged more of our partners to link to our site, creating a cross marketing environment that benefits everyone.

Our aggressive public relations campaign and fantastic relationship with our media partners has seen Tourism Thunder Bay featured in over 225 media interviews this year alone, spanning all media channels and regions, including local, regional and national radio, web, print and television. Many of these stories end up in the web and help propel Thunder Bay to the top of the searches, which in turns, generates more buzz about, what is quickly becoming, one of Canada's best outdoor cities.

We've been pioneers in the public sector application of social web based collaborative media in Canada - and likely most of North America - by introducing Facebook, Twitter and Blogging platforms to support our web campaign, capitalizing on their ease of use and huge audiences to connect with a wider range of potential visitors in a cost effective, targeted and fun framework. Making good impressions is about building relationships with the consumer and that is what these platforms allow us to do. In an age where almost all government agencies and most major corporations consider the use of social media in the work place a drain on productivity, we've embraced the technology and re-written the rule book on social media policy in the public sector marketing world (truthfully, we burned the rule book). The results have become successful communication platforms to reach our core demographics more effectively.

We're watching the web tracker daily now and when we hit 1 million visits, likely sometime in mid August, we'll be sure to celebrate a milestone in municipal level tourism marketing that all of our partners can be proud of.

Superior Pedicabs Fills Unique Niche in Thunder Bay's Sustainable Tourism Economy

With almost 1400 businesses in Thunder Bay drawing upon tourism for their livelihood in one way or another, I get a chance to meet and profile a wide range of local entrepreneurs who help create a more vibrant tourism economy.

Gord Soloway is the owner of Superior Pedicabs, a new business that started in the spring of 2008 to offer visitors to the downtown areas a unique transportation option for seeing the city in the summer. Gord operates several pedicabs, unique three wheel bikes that seat two passengers and have a driver up front peddling them around. The cabs can be seen driving all around Thunder Bay and in particular, are found at most major events such as Summer in the Parks and Bluesfest.

This year, Gord added bicycle rentals to his growing business and has been part of our cruise ship strategy for passengers wishing to explore the city on their own while in port. Gord has about a half dozen specially configured bikes that are adaptable to all sorts of users and on any given port of call, people are using them to explore the park and the city. Gord's drivers are set up dockside at Pool 6 at each call ready to provide a unique experience.

Gord's human powered transportation business is an important contributor to building Thunder Bay into a sustainable tourism leader, the experiences he makes available helps enrich visitor stays in the city and generate more tourism revenues. The more opportunities that are available for visitors, the longer they are likely to stay.

If you have a chance at explore the city by Pedicab or on one of his unique bikes, you'll see the city in a whole new great way. If you are an event host or hotel operator, contact Gord at superiorpedicabsinc@shaw.ca to learn how you can enhance your visitor's experiences with this fantastic leisurely transportation option.

You can learn more about Gord and his business at members.shaw.ca/superiorpedicabsinc

Local Partners Help Make Cruise Visitors Feel Welcome

Tourism Thunder Bay has been privileged to work with a vast array of community partners in bringing the cruise industry back to downtown Port Arthur.

Welcoming the vessel, crew and passengers to the community has been a priority for us and we have been thrilled to work with a couple of organizations who are dedicating and volunteering their time to help roll out the red carpet for our special guests.

Cindy Crowe of the Waabi-ma'iingan (Grey Wolf) Traditional Teaching Lodge has worked hard to coordinate a welcoming committee, dancers, singers and drummers for each visit. Her and her volunteers have crafted welcome cards for all of this summer's guests that include a sweet grass pin, Thunder Bay and Canada Pin. The cards have become a huge hit among passengers.

Working with Cindy are members of Opportunity Thunder Bay, a collection of local residents from all walks of life who want to do things to make the city a better place to live, work and invest. Brothers John and Jason Susin have been huge cheerleaders for the community and are here every morning to greet the ship.

We've also had a number of Drum groups, coordinated by David Simard, performing while passengers disembark the vessel each morning, giving a warm welcome and photo opportunity.

Tourism Thunder Bay can't thank these great folks enough for their commitment to making Thunder Bay a more welcoming city and for the passengers, owners and crew of the Clelia II, it sends a message to them about how important they are to us. We can do a lot and we can do a whole lot more working together and these groups are proof of that.

To learn more about the Teaching Lodge, email Cindy Crowe at crowe@tbaytel.net. To learn more about Opportunity Thunder Bay, search for their group at http://www.facebook.com/.

Thunder Bay Hotel Performance Holds Ground in the First Half of 2009.

The Thunder Bay city and district hotel occupancies paint a bright spot in what nationally, is a gloomy year in the hotel industry. The latest report from HVS, the national hotel performance tracking gurus, shows year to date performance for the Thunder Bay area at 0.0%.

While stagnation year over year is not usually anything to get excited about, this number is important in that is one of only three markets in Canada that have not reported declines in year to date room demand over 2008. Montreal downtown has also reported 0.0% and Windsor reported a staggering 5.6% growth. Everyone else, however, is down. The weekly reports for June paint mixed results but still, much better performance than other Canadian markets. with the unprecedented challenges facing the Canadian tourism economy this year, our performance measurement is not going to be based as much on past years but rather, how we are statistically performing against other cities. Stagnation this year should be looked at as being a good as growth.

For the Thunder Bay the shift has been largely due to healthy corporate travel markets and significant business within the meeting and convention segment. Tourism Thunder Bay is a member of Ontario's North a collective involving the City, Timmins, North Bay, Sudbury and Sault Ste Marie. The group has worked on cooperative campaigns focused on travel trade, travel media, corporate and touring. In 2008, we disbanded the corporate marketing element of the partnership to focus on Thunder Bay and its strategic advantages over over northern Ontario cities. The results have been an enormous increase in leads starting in 2008 that we have determined has had a role in maintaining healthy traffic patterns in an challenging economic environment.

We estimate that June to September performance will be moderately decreased due to the decreased corporate markets over the summer vacation months and a general trend in decreased leisure travel. However, early indications for the fourth quarter paint a busy fall and winter for the corporate and sport tourism markets.

We are working on innovative ways to help fuse the corporate and elisure markets togetheer through the marketing of the city as a destination with a difference - the chance for meeting and conference participants to get out of the hotel and meeting rooms to explore the cities attraactions, galleries and culinary treasures. We started this program with the Canadian Armed Forces SAREX conference in October 2008 by having a concierge booth at the conference headquarters, providing information to the event participant on restaurants, golf, fishing, kayaking and other side trips they could take. Mixing business with wellness activities is an emerging trend and one that will continue to set us apart from other cities.

You can track local hotel performance yourself and read the HSV weekly reports at http://www.hvs.com/Library/Articles/?cat=12