By Alex Hogan
Project & Administration Manager
Several Partnership Program projects have wrapped up in the past month or so….
Orillia Tourism Strategic Action Plan
The City of Orillia completed a TSAP through the Partnership Program that was presented to Council in early November. The City worked with Bannikin Travel & Tourism and RTO7 to develop a plan to capitalize on tourism-related growth opportunities within its boundaries. One of the recommendations of the strategy is the creation of Tourism Orillia within the City’s Economic Development Department. The City will now focus on a detailed implementation plan, addressing signage among other things.
Cycle Simcoe Experience Development Project
Cycle Simcoe worked with RTO7 on a cycling initiative which included several components – pulling experience/packages together, copy writing, translation, collateral (photo and video) development to support the experiences, radio advertising and digital advertising. The digital advertising (done through the Aber Group) was particularly effective in reaching Ontario and Quebec cycling enthusiasts and resulted in lots of traffic to the cycling pages of the Heart of Georgian Bay, Ontario’s Lake Country and Visit South Georgian Bay as well as many cycling map requests and downloads.
Burl’s Creek Production Impact Research
This was a second phase of work undertaken by RMCG Inc., in collaboration with Burl’s Creek, the Township of Oro-Medonte and RTO7. In 2015/16, a Festival Audience Research study was undertaken on the Way Home and Boots & Hearts festivals. This year, RMCG studied the production side of the festivals i.e. what’s involved in terms of jobs and spending in putting on the festivals (not including audience impacts). Although the project didn’t yield comprehensive production numbers, it did provide interesting insights into the patterns and spending of suppliers to the festivals, and highlighted the opportunities for Oro-Medonte and Simcoe County to grow the economic impact of the festivals.
Westin Blue Mountain Digital Advertising Campaign
The Westin Trillium at Blue Mountain, in collaboration with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, the Blue Mountain Village Association, Iwa Spa and RTO7 undertook a digital advertising campaign (through the Aber Group) into the U.S. border states for fall. The campaign was challenging in part due to corporate limitations relating to marketing, however there was significant interest generated by the campaign and lots of traffic sent to the Westin’s campaign landing page.
Partnership Program policy is to leave distribution of the reports/results of these projects to the discretion of the partner for a period of one year at which point they are shared by RTO7 on the Stakeholder Site.
The imagery/video stream of the Program has completed several projects to date as well, which may be viewed on our
Video Gallery and on
YouTube:
·
Cycle Simcoe – Heart of Georgian Bay
·
Downtown Orillia
·
Blue Heron
·
Wasaga Beach Foam Fest
·
Ontario’s Lake Country Paddling
·
Scandinave Spa – Road to Wellness
Visit the
Partnership Program page for more information on the program.