“Ontario… yours to discover.”
The marketing slogan has been used for over a decade and this year an additional part of the message is to “get comfortable in Ontario.”
Just last Friday, Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci announced a grant of $11,200 to help establish a Destination Marketing Fund that will target US visitors to the Northwest. The funding will assist the Northwestern Ontario Destination Marketing Association.
But it is a paltry sum. In a single promotion, Tourism Thunder Bay is outspending the province. In Ontario, the tourism industry is spending $11.3 million.
This year, the Ministry of Tourism budget is $195 million—lower than the amount spent in 2003. That money should be spent directly in marketing to potential American tourists. Instead, the greatest portion goes into developing infrastructure.
The announcement last Friday is too little. Assisting tourism in Northwestern Ontario will require more money for marketing than was offered by the province.
In 1980, Canada was ranked sixth in the world in attracting visitors to our country. Today, the nation has slipped to 12th. Tourism around the world is booming this year, and in Canada, foreign visitors are way down.
At the ports of Fort Frances and Rainy River, the number of visitors staying for two-plus nights has increased by two percent for the year while the number of same day visitors has declined by 14 percent for the year.
While tourists who cross at the two borders and stay two or more nights has remained constant since 1972, same day visitors has declined by almost 70,000.
Tourist camp operators are already each spending more than the province has offered to help establish the Destination Marketing fund. It is a self-taxing fund. The fund is created through a tax charged to vacationers staying at camps and resorts in the Rainy River, Patricia and Kenora regions.
To market to tourists, the ad-hoc group who are creating the Northwestern Ontario Destination Marketing fund, built a website that assists in promoting outfitters, camps, resorts, restaurants, and places of accommodation. Their plan is to compete head on with communities in northern Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and northern Michigan who are outspending the province of Ontario
The site makes Northwestern Ontario easy to discover. While the Ministry of Tourism uses its own website to sell how well it is promoting Ontario, however, the Ontario Tourism Marketing partnership will not fund the creation and production of websites.
Hopefully, the province will increase its stake in assisting this regional group expand its marketing budget.
