Duane Hicks
Fort Frances Mayor Roy Avis has written a letter to Tourism minister Michael Chan to ask for a meeting with regional leaders about the province’s decision to close Ontario Travel Information Centres (OTICs) within Sunset Country.
Mayor Avis told council Monday night that he has spoken to the mayors of Dryden, Kenora, and Red Lake, and also conferred with the town’s Economic Development Advisory Committee, and decided to write a letter supporting the position of other regional stakeholders.
He noted the letter isn’t about condemning the province, which he realizes must practice austerity at this time, but instead is about expressing the spirit of co-operation and sharing of resources.
“Maybe we could make some kind of a deal with them to keep that centre open for the summertime, and then move forward after the summer to see if there’s some type of business venture we can enter into,” said Mayor Avis.
“The content of the letter that I wrote is to request a meeting with Minister Chan in order to try to find out if there is any path that we can take that would be beneficial to Fort Frances and the whole of Northwestern Ontario,” he added.
“The municipal community of Northwestern Ontario was shocked to hear of the Government of Ontario’s recent decision to close all the tourism information centres within Sunset Country,” Mayor Avis noted in his letter to Chan.
“As you know, every year Fort Frances is the port of entry to about 400,000 U.S. visitors.
“Tourism is one of the largest industries in Sunset Country. . . . It is unacceptable that our busiest tourist corridors in Northern Ontario, Fort Frances and Kenora, the first sight that our tourists will see is a boarded up Welcome Centre,” he added.
“My council understands how difficult it is to manage priorities in difficult economic times,” Mayor Avis conceded. “We believe that solutions can be found by co-operating and sharing resources.
“To that end, I would like to invite you to an open dialogue with myself and other mayors in the region to find a way to provide on-the-ground information services while still cutting overhead costs.
“Working in co-operation with the Government of Ontario, we can facilitate a value-added experience at our province’s entry-points,” the mayor continued.
“Working together, we can strengthen our tourism industry and through that the economic conditions of Northwestern Ontario.
“We look forward to your prompt follow-up regarding this matter,” he concluded.
Coun. Andrew Hallikas, who sits on the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association board, said NOMA will have a motion to request the province keep the OTICs open at its annual general meeting at the end of the month.
“It just doesn’t make any sense that there is, other than Pigeon River, no visitor information centres between Manitoba and Sault Ste. Marie,” he remarked, adding Kenora is the gateway from Manitoba and Fort Frances is the gateway from the U.S.
“Our whole tourism system depends on tourists to our area being able to have information,” Coun. Hallikas stressed.
The closures of seven centres—in Fort Frances, Rainy River, Kenora, Fort Erie, Hill Island, Prescott, and Cornwall—were announced in the 2012 provincial budget.
They are to take effect April 30.
The province has claimed traffic at the centres has dropped by 50 percent or more in the last decade, and is shifting its tourism services to focus more on online travel marketing.
