Over 200 Tourism industry people made a brainstorming stop in city

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You would be hard pressed to find an industry hit harder during the pandemic period than tourism.  Northern Ontario felt that pain, but some in the industry believe tourism is on the path of recovery.  

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Business owners and employees in the region’s tourism industry gathered in North Bay this past week for the 10th annual Northern Ontario Tourism Summit. 

Around 200 delegates were at the Best Western for two days of meetings to compare notes and implement best practices to pump more life into the industry. 

Tanya Bédard, executive director of Tourism North Bay, sees only positives when this type of gathering takes place. 

“I consider this more of a brainstorming, collaboration and educational event,” says Bedard. “We have had many discussions about things that are directly impacting the tourism industry.  We have coffee breaks between those meetings and that has offered us a chance to have a ‘meeting of the minds’ where ideas are generated and where the contacts are made.” 

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In theory, the attendees are often in direct competition with each other fighting over tourist’s dollars. 

Bedard thinks that perceived competition is a non-issue at the conference. 

“Our job as a destination marketing organization is to bring people to North Bay.  Yes, Sudbury and Thunder Bay are here but we look at this like we are stronger together,” says Bedard.  “When we are looking at international markets, the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) or even the US border states we want to show what our offerings are.  They may be slightly different from one another, we do have that stronger together mentality and we can all benefit from learning from each other,” says Bedard.

David MacLachlan is the Executive Director of Destination Northern Ontario.  MacLachlan says the post-COVID tourism industry is gaining steam.

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“This year we are going to exceed 2018 revenue numbers so the sector has built back.  That doesn’t mean we aren’t facing challenges within some of the segments of the industry,” says MacLachlan, citing a drop in US and international visitors.  MacLachlan has some specific ideas of where he wants to see the tourism industry move to stay relevant and profitable.

“Our challenge for the future is presenting Northern Ontario as a vacation destination for a general leisure consumer.  We do very well with the avid folks, like anglers, hunters and sledders when we have snow,” says MacLachlan.

The COVID period did help a certain type of tourism.  “When the borders were closed a lot of people from Ontario who had no where to go and we picked up a lot of visitors and we were able to maintain them, so things are looking good,” says MacLachlan.

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