THUNDER BAY – The city’s tourism industry is estimated to have generated an additional $7 million in economic impact this year compared to 2016.
City tourism manager Paul Pepe, who will present a fall report to city council on Monday night, said visitors to the city contribute more than $175 million annually to the Thunder Bay economy.
“It was a strong summer for sport tourism, the World U-18 Baseball (World Cup) was a big part of that and the Staal Foundation Open played a big role in that as well,” Pepe said.
The increased tourist traffic is evident in the city’s hotel occupancy, which at 74 per cent through the end of August was up four per cent from the same period in the previous year.
The summer months of July and August were the busiest with nearly 90 per cent of rooms booked, placing Thunder Bay third behind Halifax and metropolitan Vancouver for the highest occupancy rates in the country.
“Even having the new inventory in the system, which you would think would create a bit of a market correction and a bit of a decrease in average daily rate with increased competition in the marketplace, we didn’t see that at all,” Pepe said.
“In fact we saw quite the opposite with occupancy continuing to grow and we saw the average daily rate continue to grow.”
While traffic from south of the border was slower than initially expected, the number of travellers from across Canada was on the rise.
Pepe said the combination of the weaker Canadian dollar and Canada 150 celebrations likely motivated more people to stay in the country and not take trips abroad.
“We noticed a lot more Canadians exploring Canada this year,” Pepe said. “For us, we saw a lot more traffic from Manitoba and Quebec registrations at our visitor centre were up substantially over last year.”
While the summer calendar that included high-profile sporting attractions and other events like the Thunder Bay Blues Festival spurred travel, Pepe said the city’s geography remains its calling card for prospective tourists.
Ongoing market development, a draft plan of which will also be presented to council, will look at how to promote what is available not just in Thunder Bay but across Northwestern Ontario.
“We recognize that we’re a gateway, we’re an urban base camp. We continue to strengthen our positon as Canada’s premier outdoor city in our tourism marketing and development strategies,” Pepe said.
“What we recognize is we have world class freshwater angling, we have some of the world’s best known paddling parks in the region nationally and provincially and what’s important is how we get visitors out to those experiences while flowing them through the city and getting them to spend an extra day or two here.”
