Duane Hicks
The Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce is asking for an extra $2,000 in the town’s 2016 budget to help with tourism marketing.
Chamber president Jennifer Greenhalgh requested town council increase the current allotted fee for services from $7,500 to $9,500.
This funding would cover some of the tourism costs incurred by the Chamber, such as the mailing and sending of brochures, advertising expenses, membership costs, the 1-800 tourism number, and more.
Greenhalgh noted the volume of tourist contact with the Chamber has increased 27.5 percent since last year.
“We find that a lot of our tourists are, of course, American, and the way it works in the U.S. is the Chambers and tourist bureaus are together, they’re co-located,” she remarked.
“And so most Americans assume . . . it’s the same arrangement in Canada and, of course, it’s not.
“So we end up with an awful lot of calls, and we end up with a lot of people who want information,” Greenhalgh added.
“We give a tremendous amount of local information out, and we give them a reason to stop and stay.”
So far this year, the Chamber has had 343 inquiries about shopping in Fort Frances, 782 about directions, and 445 about lodging.
“Even in January, which everybody sort of thinks is kind of a down month, we actually had 126 different inquiries,” said Greenhalgh.
“And I think in February we [had] 282 and in March we had 391.
“So we have an awful lot of demands,” she stressed.
“A lot of people will go online, but a lot of people still want you to send them information,” Greenhalgh added, noting postage costs are “really quite high.”
The Chamber currently receives a $7,500 grant from the town for tourism marketing.
As far as Greenhalgh can determine, this amount has not changed since the late 1980s or early ’90s.
She conceded that was a lot of money back then, but the world has changed and costs have risen.
Greenhalgh added the Chamber is using its dollars very wisely but has had to resort to using its own operating dollars to cover costs.
“I am sure that everybody appreciates that with the change in the dollar right now, we are going to see more and more Americans coming up because it’s such a good deal right now,” she remarked.
