Duane Hicks
Local municipal, business, and tourism leaders are opposing the closure of the Ontario Travel Information Centre (OTIC) in Fort Frances at month’s end and hoping the province will reconsider its decision.
“It was shocking to hear both Fort Frances and Rainy River are going to close,” said Mayor Roy Avis, referring to the local OTIC being earmarked for closure along with the ones in Rainy River and Kenora in Northwestern Ontario, and Fort Erie, Hill Island, Prescott, and Cornwall elsewhere in the province.
“This district is basically the port-of-entry for Northwestern Ontario from the U.S. and to have these close is a detriment to tourism in our area,” he stressed.
“I do have quite a concern. We know that tourists that come through Fort Frances go throughout Northwestern Ontario—Kenora, Dryden, Red Lake, Sioux Lookout, throughout the whole region,” added Mayor Avis, noting he already has been in contact with the mayors of Red Lake and Kenora.
The mayor said he also is bringing up the matter with the local Economic Development Advisory Committee to garner input on how the town should proceed.
“I’d like to know the reason why it is closed,” he said. “Possibly, we could get together as municipalities, and through some organization have it open for the summer months.
“I think we have to do a little bit of searching and find out the reason for the closing, and if there’s any alternatives.”
The Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce vehemently opposes the closure.
The plan to close the Fort Frances Travel Information Centre, as put forth in the 2012 Ontario budget, “shows once again a blatant disregard for the economic needs of the Rainy River District,” Chamber president Mark Caron said last week in a press release.
He added the OTIC here processes more than 181,000 American travellers each summer and is critical to the growth of the tourism industry in the region.
“Tourism is a major economic driver in the Fort Frances area. Supporting that industry should be a provincial responsibility,” Caron charged.
“It is a provincial responsibility in Bainsville, Barrie, Hawkesbury, Niagara Falls, Pigeon River, Sault Ste. Marie, St. Catharines, Sarnia, Tilbury, Toronto Atrium on Bay, and Windsor Park,” he added.
“Why not here?”
The closure of the tourist information centre in Fort Frances was announced along with the closure notices for the Rainy River and Kenora border offices, which means Ontario “will have no greeting, no presence, and is taking no responsibility for adding value to and promoting tourism on the ground in Sunset Country,” said Caron.
“We will be talking to [the] Sunset Country Tourism Association, writing letters, looking for support from NOACC and NOMA,” he noted.
“We’re going to send the message to Queen’s Park that it is not okay to ignore our needs in the north,” Caron vowed.
“It is not appropriate to burden the businesses of Fort Frances with a responsibility that is provincial.”
“We are very disappointed with news that all the tourist information centres in Sunset Country have been closed,” said Tom Pearson, owner of Camp Narrows Lodge of Rainy Lake, who also is president of the SCTA and North Western Ontario Tourism Association (NWOTA), and is a board member of the Northern Ontario Regional Tourism Organization 13 (RTO 13C).
“I am very concerned with the Government of Ontario’s decision,” he noted. “This judgment was made without any input from Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation’s marketing partners.”
Pearson said he understands the need to balance budgets, but depriving small business of an important avenue to market their products is not the way.
“Over half the small businesses in Canada do not have a website or any online marketing,” he explained.
“There is a reason for that: Internet access is limited throughout the vast geography of Northern Ontario.”
Pearson said there also has been a lot of talk of using travel “apps” to give travellers instant access to information on any tourist destination in that area.
“This will work great in southern Ontario,” he said. “But in Northern Ontario, unless you are right inside a small town, good luck.
“We need tourist information centres to be able to offer ‘all’ that is available to our guests because we have no way to do it ourselves,” he argued.
Pearson said the decision was done without consultation and without warning, and it also “does not make sense.”
“Studies have shown that while tourism plays an important role in other regions of the province, the northwest is unique because here we bring in dollars from other jurisdictions outside of Ontario, such as the United States and Manitoba, while other regions rely substantially on tourists from inside Ontario,” he noted.
“It also shows that visitors to our region spend substantially more money per visit than in other regions of the province.
“We can only ensure that we maximize the money that is spent by offering Travel Information Centres that are open at points of entry and ready to serve,” he reasoned.
Kenora-Rainy River MPP Sarah Campbell agreed the decision is a mistake and also is vowing to fight the closures of the OTIC here and in Rainy River and Kenora.
“This is another sign that the current government just doesn’t get it,” said Campbell at Queen’s Park yesterday.
“Unlike other parts of the province where regional tourism simply draws people from large urban centres within Ontario, Northwestern Ontario brings significant revenue into the province from other jurisdictions,” she added.
Campbell said tourists arriving from outside Ontario often rely on the information these centres provide at border crossings.
“The evidence is overwhelming that people traveling from other provinces and the United States are more likely to visit parks, historical sites and other roadside attractions and they learn about these through our Tourist Information Centres,” she noted.
“The same studies show that visitors to our region spend significantly more money per visit, than they do in other regions in the province. They can’t do that if they’re unaware of attractions, parks and historical sites to visit,” added Campbell.
Campbell encouraged residents to get involved by sending letters and e-mails to her office.
People also can print off, sign, and circulate a petition she has drafted, which was available on Facebook (facebook.com/Sarah4NWO), Twitter (@Sarah4NWO), and her website (Sarah4NWO.ca) as of yesterday afternoon.
As reported last Thursday, the Fort Frances OTIC is one of seven being shuttered, along with Rainy River, Kenora, Fort Erie, Hill Island, Prescott, and Cornwall.
The closures were announced in Ontario’s 2012 budget on March 27.
“The Fort Frances Ontario Travel Information Centre has low and declining visitation,” Luanne Walker, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs (OTMPC), said in an e-mail Thursday.
The province has said visits to some OTICs have dropped by half in the last decade “as travellers adopt a self-service approach and increasingly use the Internet for their travel research and planning.”
“Reconfiguring the OTIC network is a necessary step in the transformation of ministry programs and agencies to secure a sustainable future for tourism, culture, and sport programs,” Walker added.
She noted traffic to the Fort Frances OTIC has declined by more than 50 percent in the past 10 years, as is the case for all of the others marked for closure.
The year-round OTICs located in Fort Frances, Cornwall, and Fort Erie will close, according to the ministry.
The seasonal ones located in Rainy River, Kenora, Hill Island, and Prescott will not re-open this year.
Eleven OTICs province-wide will continue to operate in Bainsville, Barrie, Hawkesbury, Niagara Falls, Pigeon River, Sault Ste Marie, St. Catharines, Sarnia, Tilbury, Toronto Atrium on Bay, and Windsor Park.
As well, the travel information call centre also will continue to operate.
