Another good year for tourism operators

The Northwestern Ontario Tourism Association will be holding it’s annual spring meeting tomorrow, and the agenda seems light.
“There’s not a tonne of major issues this year, which is nice,” said Tom Pearson, president of NWOTA. “Usually we’re bogged down with issues.”
The meeting, which begins with the election of officers and meeting in the morning, will be open to the public after the morning coffee.
The meeting, being held at the Emo Legion, will be open to the public from about 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., with a lunch for registered participants in between.
“We’d like to see operators who aren’t members come out,” he said. “We can always use new board members and new members. That’s why we’ve left the afternoon open.
“And we want to hear issues,” he continued. “If they have problems, this is the time to discuss them.”
He conceded that there are some border issue that will be discussed in the morning and that recent stirrings about a return of the spring bear hunt.
“We haven’t really heard yet,” he said. “I’m hoping, I’m optimistic that it will come back, especially with the new committee reports. We don’t have it on the agenda [but sure it will be discussed].
“The newest thing people will be discussing is the effect of the war and SARS,” said Pearson. “I’m sure we’ll be discussing the war.”
Recently, there have been reports of tourism operators having cancellations from American visitors because of the stance the Canadian government took on the war in Iraq.
“Maybe because of the stance on the war you’ll get some of that grumbling out of people,” he said. “People are worried about it but it’s not affecting the resorts like people are saying.
“People aren’t going to be going out of business because of it,” he concluded.
He said that for the most part, people that have been coming up here for years are still coming up here.
“The phone’s not ringing off the hook, but we have regulars,” he said, adding that the coming season looks like it will be his best in 18 years as a resort owner.
“Most of them love coming up here,” said Pearson, who runs Camp Narrows Lodge on the north arm of Rainy Lake. “We are a safe place to go, especially here in Northwestern Ontario. It’s a safe and a great place to go.”