Tourism season looks promising in northwest

With the heat of summer comes the tourism season–and an estimated $1.2 billion in tourist dollars into the Northern Ontario economy.
By most accounts, this season looks promising.
“I think overall it looks as good as, if not slightly better, than the last few years,” said George Blanc, co-owner of La Place Rendez-Vous here.
Years in the tourism business have taught Blanc to read the signs of success.
“The advance bookings that we have received, plus the occupancy level on weekends, has a great bearing on what kind of season we’re going to have,” he explained.
Jerri McDougall is president of the North Western Ontario Tourist Association (NWOTA), and owned a lodge for 20 years. Now operating a landing that serves as a base for lodge owners, she also is hearing good news.
“The only [lodge owners] that I’ve talked to that are saying that it won’t be as good as last year are those [owners] that had such banner years last year,” McDougall noted.
Gerry Cariou, executive director of the 340-member Sunset Country Tourism Association, based in Kenora, said the economic impact estimate for Sunset Country in 1996 was $145 million.
He added border crossings already were up 12 percent since last year, and said the increase in border traffic would see that dollar figure grow considerably.
Cariou sees economic trends as the driving force behind the boom in tourism.
“Tourism as an economic sector often follows other economic trends,” he explained. “When the economy is good, and the American economy has been booming this year, it’s going to have a direct impact on how well we do from a tourist point of view.
“I expect a very good season this year,” he added, though admitting the loss of the spring bear hunt certainly would affect some lodges.
Meanwhile, Ron Zizman, president of the Northern Ontario Tourism Marketing Corp., sees even more reasons why this should be solid year for tourism.
“We’ll have a lot of people from Ontario travelling within Ontario, and other Canadians travelling in Ontario because of the high cost of going to the U.S.,” he noted.
Zizman said people are looking for unique but safe adventures such as kayaking, and backpacking and fishing. He believes this is an untapped market and sees it as part of the corporation’s overall goal of creating a separate and unique tourism identity for Northern Ontario.
Cariou is busy in the winter months marketing Sunset Country through sports shows in the U.S., and distributing brochures and other advertising.
“Marketing is a critical aspect and were doing a good job of positioning Sunset Country in the U.S. and our other markets,” he said.
Black Bear Camp is a hunting and fishing camp near Nestor Falls. Six years ago, under different ownership, it almost went out of business. But Val Synenko has operated it for six seasons and knows marketing works.
He measures success in help wanted signs.
“This is our busiest year. We’ve been doing more and more [marketing] every year and every year we see an escalation,” said Synenko. “This is the first year we’ve had two full-time staff and we could have used three.”