The Morinville and District Chamber of Commerce is hoping to bring more tourists and their dollars to the community with the help of a $70,000 provincial grant.
The chamber was awarded the grant last week from the Department of Tourism, Parks and Recreation to create a regional tourism action plan for the area.
Chamber president Sheldon Fingler said the plan should give them a better idea of what the area can offer tourists.
“The goal would be to work with a consultant to find out what we have in our region and what we can do to create a plan that would draw people to our region.”
Morinville Mayor Lloyd Bertschi welcomed the grant, saying there is real potential for the community working to bring people to town for its many events.
“We have over a million people living within one hour of us and hopefully we can attract them all to come out once a year. Not all on the same day, but if they all came out once every year that would be great.”
Fingler points to last weekend’s Tour de L’Alberta bicycle ride as an example of an event that brings the community lots of business.
“Lots of people came over and asked about where a good place to eat was, where could they go grab something. There were tons of opportunities for local businesses to take advantage of the event.”
Bertschi points out the 1,100 riders represent a sizeable increase in Morinville’s population.
“That is huge. That is up from 800 people last year and that is up 10 or 15 per cent for our population in one day.”
Fingler points out the town is losing a bike shop that might have been helped by the tour.
“Morinville has a fantastic bike shop that is unfortunately closing. People would not even know about that bike shop had they not taken the tour.”
He said the chamber is concerned about local businesses. Whether it’s small shops or big chains that leave the community, it’s bad for Morinville.
“No matter what it still affects our community. We want to see businesses grow, not shrink.”
Earlier this year, the town split the $14,000 cost of a study on a hotel in Morinville with a private landowner.
Bertschi said the town hopes to attract conventions to the new cultural centre and a hotel would be a good fit for that. He said if the study finds a hotel could work in the community, but the private landowner doesn’t go ahead, the town can still take it to other hotel groups.
He said the cultural centre should be very successful in bringing people to town. Fingler said the chamber is getting consultant proposals to develop the tourism plan and hopes to have the project finished in three to six months.
