Attracting visitors to Minnedosa
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- Published on Monday, May 18, 2015
By Vern May
Minnedosa & Area Community Development
If you’re looking out your window right now and you don’t see something that would be interesting to a first-timer, it might be time for us to have a conversation. Leisure travel is changing and our wide open spaces could be the next big ticket.
Think back a generation or two and the distances travelled for school field trips and family vacations. Those school trips for us “farm kids” might have yielded a trip to Winnipeg and we were supposed to be excited about that. Now our kids are fundraising for a whole year for a national or international excursion. Those family trips, once loaded up in confined quarters to drive miles and miles in the family station wagon to any destination only available by road, have been replaced with round trip airfare and a time share to escape the harsh Manitoba winter.
“How does this help us?” you might be asking. If people are travelling farther away to more exotic foreign locales, shouldn’t that mean our chance of attracting attention to a familiar small town setting would be less?
Only if you’re looking at neighbours in surrounding towns and hoping to get them excited to experience Rapid City or Oak River.
Just as we are expanding our horizons and exploring the world, so are travelers from other parts of the world. Europeans and Asians, in particular, are very curious about our Canadian way of life. The province, through Travel Manitoba, is invested in marketing Manitoba as a destination where visitors can get hands-on with Canadian culture. A lot of the day-to-day things we take for granted are truly interesting for folks who don’t get to experience that where they live.
Agri-Tourism is becoming increasingly popular, allowing visitors the opportunity to visit a working farm and learn first-hand about the Canadian farming lifestyle. In western Manitoba, we have a few operations like this that have opened the doors to visitors. Meandher Creek Pumpkin Patch at Oak Lake, Fraser Family Farm at Boissevain and Westwood Ranch Garden Centre at Elkhorn are three examples of this emerging industry. Some farms allow visitors to perform chores to enrich their authentic experience. Collecting eggs, milking cows and feeding livestock are all experiences that are unique to many, even “city slickers” in our own province. Look around at your own operation. Could you offer horseback riding or include a bed and breakfast component to the experience?
Let’s continue the conversation and explore the possibilities that exist. Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone at 204-867-3885 to talk. The best things around that I have ever seen, came from small towns and big dreams.
