Good morning everyone and on behalf of the Mayor, my colleagues on Council, the Board of Directors for Tourism Barrie, I want to welcome you to Tourism Barrie’s Annual General Meeting and also welcome our Guest Speaker, Mr. Greg Baeker.  We all look forward to Greg’s insight and ideas on the opportunities available to the City of Barrie and our region to attract tourists and of course tourist dollars.

 

Let me begin by saying that I am very proud to be the City’s representative on Tourism Barries Board of Directors.  I’ve seen first hand the determination and desire of the Board along with Kathleen and her staff in their efforts to promote Barrie and our region as a tourist destination.  The past year has been an extremely busy one for Tourism Barrie with two key areas of focus.  One being strategy and the other being partnerships.  From the completion of the Premier-Ranked Tourism Destinations Framework Project, to the development and implementation of our own internal strategic plan, and the release of the Provincial Governments study in February on a strategy to increase the competitiveness of the tourism sector in Ontario, the foundation is being laid for boosting the tourism related economy in Central Ontario.  The key element to the development of any strategy however, is the partnerships that we develop and it’s clear to me at least that the partnership between the City of Barrie and our friends at the County as it relates to our mutual interest in the success of making Central Ontario a premier tourist destination is very strong and that’s because we get it,  We get the fact that we don’t have to compete and that we can in fact compliment.  We get the fact that there is no need to fight for tourism dollars for this region and when one wins, we all win economically.  We get the fact that our ultimate goal should be in the promotion of Central Ontario as a Tourist Destination for all that we have to offer in terms of Culture, Recreation, as well as the shear beauty of our region.

 

Every one of you who are here today as partners of not just Tourism Barrie but also Tourism in Central Ontario have played a key role in the promotion of our region as a tourist destination over the last year.  As we go forward, there is no doubt that we will face challenges given the current state of the economy but by all accounts, we are starting to see a turnaround.  In spite of the downturn, there are opportunities for us to capitalize on.  More people will be vacationing closer to home, “staycations, as they’ve been termed will see more people in southern Ontario looking for single or multi-day destinations to travel and what better place to go than right here.  A day at the beach, a day of golf, a day at the museum, or a day on the boat followed by dinner and a stay at a hotel for one or two nights presents real opportunities for aggressive cross marketing promotions which I know many of you have already been doing.  Just last week, Tourism Barrie spent the morning at Union Station handing out our new Tourism and Visitors guide which no doubt will be a benefit to our region over the summer.   There are millions of people within an hour of us who will not be going out of Province this summer. 

 

I’d like to take a few moments to speak specifically about Barrie.  We’ve often been described as a place people drive by on their way to someplace else and it only takes a look out the windows of this building to realize that we are missing out on tremendous possibilities to attract tourists right here to Barrie and we must be better at bringing people off the highway. 

 

EXAMPLE::::        The home builders fishing derby

I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT CREATING A WONDERLAND on out waterfront but we do have to do more to capitalize on what I consider a destination asset.  There are many examples like Kempenfest, Celebrate Barrie, and Winterfest that do a great job at bringing people here but these are only select weekend opportunities for us to capitalize on.   The need for better recreation infrastructure in and around our waterfront allowing us to capitalize on our waterfront asset will likely be addressed in the recreation master plan that is expected to be completed by the end of 2009.  The long awaited development of the Allandale Station Lands will in spite of vocal opinions to the contrary, attract tourists and tourism dollars when the restoration of the Station buildings to their former glory is completed which is the single most important aspect of the 4 main components of the project.  Council has made that explicitly clear to the proponents because we recognize the possibility that the station restoration represents to the potential of not just attracting residents to the site but also attracting tourists to it as well.  Our City Centre revitilization efforts continue and will eventually see the creation of more parkland on our waterfront, again presenting a real opportunity for us to capitalize on the tourism market by making it even more inviting for people to enjoy our waterfront.  If they come here and not just drive by here, tourists will see what we have to offer here and my belief is that once they do see what we have, it will be difficult for them not to come back. 

 

I’ll let you in on a little secret that I have found out since being elected and that is that we don’t have to look too far to see the potential of our market because as hard as this is to believe, there are residents of my Ward, some of whom have been living in this City for a long time, who don’t even know that the City has a waterfront or a City Centre with so much to offer.  My point is that as partners of tourism Barrie, which all of you are, we can’t forget about a market that is already here, our residents who have tourism dollars to spend.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning and I look forward to a successful year for Tourism in our region and ask that if you need anything from me or Barrie City Council, please do not hesitate to ask.  Enjoy your morning and thank you for your support and partnership.