The picture is not entirely clear, but it’s at least less foggy. Flin Flon’s approach to encouraging tourism is starting to take shape.
Over a four-hour meeting on Jan. 22 at the Creighton Community Centre organized by Travel Manitoba and regional business owners, attendees discussed the ins and outs of tourism, how it should be approached in Flin Flon, what should be emphasized and what to avoid.
Travel Manitoba officials used the visual of boulders, rocks and pebbles to describe attractions by importance, listing items like area lakes and community events as boulders, well-known items that will always be positive draws for the community.
Vern May, the economic development officer for Portage La Prairie, joined the group via Skype. Portage la Prairie recently received a place branding from Travel Manitoba. May, who was charged with the brand’s rollout, described the process involved in spreading the word and the impact of a well-thought-out tourism strategy for small Manitoba towns.
“Sometimes, you’re given the advice to only bite off what you can chew, but then, honestly, I might go hungry with that,” he said.
“We’re trying to sell the experience of coming to Portage la Prairie or coming to Flin Flon and the memories you’re going to make with your family and your kids.”
May pointed out that, while locals may not see constant advertising with the place brand logo, the logo was being used elsewhere to promote the community.
“Our local people are not necessarily the tourists. We can spend a lot of money on advertising, and local people may not see any of it. That has been the case. We did a lot of marketing, but a lot of our advertising dollars are spent outside the town and outside the region because we want people who aren’t from inside that radius and have a vague familiarity with Portage la Prairie to get excited,” he said.
“Because we’ve incorporated this in as part of our investment profile, this brand has been seen physically in Europe, the US, Mexico, Korea and China. That’s much farther than we would have gone, in terms of tourism marketing, if we had just been looking at that.”
Main Street business owners Treasure Daneliuk and Cathy Lofgren discussed the idea of Main Street revitalization, arguing that renovating and restoring businesses on Main Street could have positive effects on visitors coming to town and for other business owners.
“We need to see new businesses come to town, just so everyone has more. One of the most important reasons is to reflect the same image that the community sees in itself. Such an image is a critical factor for the community to retain existing businesses in order to recruit new ones,” said Daneliuk.
“If downtown is neglected, outsiders will consider this as a reflection of the entire community.”
As an example of a successful Main Street revitalization, the pair brought up Maple Creek, Sask., which recently carried out an external renewal on 13 buildings located on the town’s main street. After investing around $3 million into the project, Lofgren said the town began to reap benefits.
“From this, 20 new small businesses opened. Fifty new jobs were created. The tourism visitation numbers grew from 250,000 to 330,000 per year,” she said.
“The increase in tourism resulted in most businesses in the downtown core reporting their best summer sales in 20 years. One business reported a 100 per cent increase in sales.”
As the meeting wore on, one idea remained on the minds of organizers; the formation of a destination management organization (DMO), a group made to promote travel to any given area.
While attendees did not come to a solution on creating a DMO, some people at the meeting signed up for a second meeting to be held later to discuss the matter further.
