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Weekly UpdatesThunder Bay tourism manager Paul Pepe knows all about taking advantage of opportunities in a volatile market.
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With the North American travel market struggling since 2003, Thunder Bay has managed to shift gears from relying on American tourists to taking a targeted approach to luring meeting and convention delegates to this northwestern Ontario city
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"We saw the writing on the wall with the slowdown in the U.S. economy and the passport deadline looming, and we decided on the pragmatic approach," said Pepe.
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Meetings, conventions and sports tourism are where the tourism department shifted focus more than a year ago.
Booking a Thunder Bay hotel room in the so-called 'shoulder tourism seasons' can be a chore. The busy peak period for conferences are late September to late November, and then February to late May.
Events fill hotels, restaurants and shops in contributing to the $183 million economic jolt to the community from the 652,000 total visitors to Thunder Bay last year.
"We focus on Thunder Bay as a meeting destination with a difference."
When the city hits the convention trade show circuit, they pursue sure bets in five sectors of the corporate market that do business in Thunder Bay: mining, health sciences, education, First Nations and government.
"We try to fill the gap with things we know we can attract," said Pepe. "It's finding out what markets are still traveling in tough times and speaking to them directly"
Pepe expects a strong events calendar this fall boosted by the arrival of Porter Airlines with a direct connection to Toronto, something he calls an "enormous bonus" for the meeting and convention market.
Aside from the convention hotels, the city has some unique meeting and trade show space including the 90,000-square-foot golf dome, campus facilities at Lakehead University and Confederation College, Fort William Historical Park and the upscale Whitewater Golf Course.
Pepe spoke at the International Eco-tourism conference in Vancouver last October on the city's marketing strategy that connects the urban environment to the outdoors. "It's a very rare and risky strategy for cities to do but we've done it very well"
When the city hosted military visitors at a championship of search and rescue technicians last fall, tourism staff set up a booth in an airport hangar to arrange golf excursions and salmon fishing charters.
"We found it really makes us stand out in attracting conferences and conventions to the city," said Pepe. "The whole idea is to help the leisure market survive through tough times."
The department has an aggressive sport tourism strategy that lead to hosting the Ontario junior diving and swimming championships last year, which sold out every hotel room in July.
With a meeting and convention coordinator on staff to hustle up new business, they work with local organizations to bid on national and international events. It helped Thunder Bay land the World Junior Basement Championship in 2010.
In some cases, tourism officials dream up a few events of their own, like next year's 'Miles with the Giant' fall marathon.
"When people are passionate and, avid, they're going to come regardless of the economy," said Pepe.
Companies with Thunder Bay branches are encouraged to pursue national conferences, with the city playing a supporting role. "We work with them behind the scenes to help them make their bid," said Pepe.
The City of Thunder Bay's Recreation and Culture department has a special events coordinator who acts as a go-between with event planners and city hall to secure permits, road closures, handle bookings and provide visitor information.
Tourism Thunder Bay is also pushing the corporate retreat market by promoting the many lodges and retreats within an hour of the city, including places like Nipigon River Adventures in Red Rock.
Located on the Lake Superior shore, resort owner Ray Rivard, a former provincial government bureaucrat, purchased the landmark Quebec Lodge in 2007.
Called by one visitor as a "miniature Montebello," the secluded lodge boasts spectacular elevated views of Superior and is close to fantastic speckled trout fishing on the Nipigon River.
Built in 1937 by the Lake Sulphide Pulp and Paper Company, the lodge was the exclusive domain of the forestry barons of the day. The 4,000-square-foot log cabin was handed down through a succession of companies to Norampac which closed the Red Rock mill and put the property on the block.
"They kept this as a secret, now I'm trying to let the secret out," said Rivard.
Together with business partner Ginger Randle, plans are to promote the lodge as a centre for eco-tourism and corporate getaways.
Whenever possible, Rivard has sought local partners to provide guests with tourism packages with fishing and sailing charters, kayak rentals and guided hikes on the Nipigon trails.
"Everybody gets a piece of the action."
To get the word out, Rivard uses his tourism ministry connections to latch on to government-sponsored familiarization tours. Recently, he hosted a half-dozen travel writers from National Geographic and the Chicago media who were loaded on a sailboat in Thunder Bay, with a tai chi master aboard, for an exploratory cruise among the North Shore lighthouses.
The lodge has accommodations for 10-12 people and meeting space for 30 in the lodge's fully-wired log living room, accented by a huge stone fireplace.
In 2008, his first full year of operation, he entertained 1,000 guests, including a meeting of Molson representatives from across Ontario and some government officials.
Despite the recession, there is a glimmer of hope in some local tourism figures.
Overall visitation numbers compiled by Smith Travel Research in the May 2009 Canadian Lodging Outlook shows Thunder Bay is holding steady
For this year leading up to May hotel occupancy remained virtually unchanged over the same period in 2008. Of the 2,211 hotel rooms listed in the Thunder Bay-Ontario North category, 2009 occupancy stood at 60.5 per cent, which measured up favourably to the 60.4 per cent last year.
May alone showed a slight improvement, up 1.6 per cent over the same time in 2008.
"There's a sense of optimism," said Pepe. "There's a feeling that summer is a few points down, but looking at hotel statistics at the end of May we held our ground in Thunder Bay To me, that's as good as growth."
There are plenty of rumblings about possible new hotel properties coming to the city but one certainty is the $130 million waterfront development project will have a luxury 120-room hotel with a spa and indoor water park. "It's a corporate hotel during the week and a family hotel on weekends," said Pepe.
The developers have not yet branded the property.
www.thunderbay.ca/Visiting/Meetings_and_Conventions.htm
www.thunderbaytourismpartners.blogspot.com
By IAN ROSS
Northern Ontario Business
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