By NICK STEWART
There is a growing interest in Ontarians exploring their own back yard, says Rob Skelly, the city’s manager of tourism, culture and marketing.
Currently, more than 90 per cent of the city’s tourism numbers come from Ontario-based travelers. Southern Ontario residents are a particularly attractive population for future marketing efforts.
The city’s collaboration with the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation in developing a strategy for the North has revealed that a “sizeable population” in southern Ontario is unfamiliar with the region, Skelly says.
Various studies indicate up to a million households representing nearly four million people in the family pool could potentially be targeted in that area.
“It’s a huge market, it really is,” Skelly says.
“It’s an area that has tremendous potential, but we haven’t really tapped into it just yet, so we’re thinking about focusing some of our marketing efforts in that sector.”
This could prove to be a considerable benefit for the city, given that $160 million is already poured into the local economy every year due to the 1.6 million people who pass through Sudbury on an annual basis. This puts the city’s tourism sector as being considerably healthier than most in the North, as Skelly says most regions have found themselves in decline since 2001.
This and other strategies are being developed on the heels of a 2005 study known as the Premier Ranked Tourism Destination Project, which found the city taking stock of 480 local tourism-related businesses. By assessing and analyzing these local resources, the city is preparing to create a new long-term tourism strategy which will prepare Sudbury from 2008 into 2015.
Based on the same report, Skelly says the city has a noticeable lack of mid-range activities.
As a result, visiting families have options that will occupy their time either for an hour or a whole day, but very little that can carry them through for three or four hours. Examples of this kind of attraction include the Cortina Cruise on Lake Ramsey, and the waterpark in nearby Chelmsford which began construction, but never fully materialized.
Local events, such as regional hockey tournaments and Cinefest, help to bring 30,000 to 40,000 people into the city every year.
As this number has been on the rise, Skelly says the city has taken the initiative to help promote the growth of this sector by instituting an events and conference assistance program. Along with logistical and organizational assistance, the program also features an $80,000 annual fund available to local groups looking to develop events in Sudbury.
Nearly 25 groups take advantage of the program every year, and Skelly says he expects that number to hold strong or possibly improve as people begin to consider Sudbury as a viable gathering place.
However, the city is limited in its ability to host increasingly larger events, as even the local arena can scarcely handle more than a few hundred delegates, Skelly says.
In this regard, the $75 million performing arts centre being proposed by the city would improve general capacity and enable Sudbury to begin hosting events of considerably bigger scale. Skelly anticipates the arts centre would be able to accommodate anywhere from 1,200 to 1,800 delegates.
A facility of that size would be able to used on a regular basis for a wide variety of purposes, he adds, allowing various businesses to host conference calls and larger meetings they might not otherwise be able to handle on their own premises.
“There’s a real void in the downtown in terms of space for trade shows. We’re anticipating that the arts centre would be used every day for something, and would be able to meet business needs, not just cultural program.”
