It starts with a visit
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- Published on Sunday, October 11, 2015
By Vern May
Minnedosa & Area Community Development
It starts with a reason to make your first visit. Unless you were born and raised in a community that you’ve grown to know not by street names but by landmarks, your first visit somewhere new requires a reason to go.Maybe the town is hosting an event you’re interested to attend – a concert, trade show or sporting event. Perhaps you’ve heard about an obscure restaurant or specialty retailer you’re dying to verify if they live up to their hype. Even if you’re just looking for a reason to turn off the road to break up a longer journey with a quick gas and go, there’s still a lingering curiosity about what may await you.
Talk to your local restaurateurs; they’ll tell you they are certainly familiar with the local faces that come in for coffee and lunch from time to time, but that the real support for their bottom line comes from people who are travelling. Locally, one might take the family out for dinner once a week – that isn’t going to support a seven day, 98 hour per week business. No, it’s the out-of-towners that are visiting and becoming familiar fixtures in your restaurants and their word of mouth that is piquing the curiosity of others to visit and explore as well.
The point is this – every first visit introduces someone to your community. They’re a tourist and the experience they take away from that first taste will determine if you’ve tempted their appetite to come back for a second helping.
There are those who dismiss the importance of tourism in rural areas, feeling that the seasonal benefit to the front line retail and hospitality industry is negligible. They believe tourism should be excluded from the schedule of what they would term “real economic development.”
Many dismiss the hard numbers that are associated with hosting a successful event. If you host a concert in your small town that draws a crowd of 1,000 people with a $35 ticket price, that event has generated $35,000 into the local economy. Add to that any on-site food and beverage sales, 50/50 or raffle draws, and that number increases as well. But on top of the direct impacts of the show, consider also the ripple effect of people fuelling up their cars, booking hotel rooms, visiting your local shops and restaurants before the event. Those numbers add up quickly.
The fact is that unless your town can inspire visitors to get curious enough to explore your community once, how are you supposed to build their confidence to expand on that relationship for them to invest in a home or business? It’s not just dollars and cents. People need to experience the friendliness of the locals, perceive how active the business district is and see how cozy your residential neighbourhoods are. Can they picture their future in your town?
Tourism is not limited to parks and roadside attractions. No, the business of welcoming first-timers to your community is instead the building block of your future growth and economic success.
