Early signs point to strong tourist season

Official numbers won’t be in for awhile, but all signs are pointing to a strong tourism season in Moose Jaw. “Anecdotally speaking, every business I’ve spoken to, July has been amazing. August seems to have really picked up at our centre for sure,” said Jacki L’Heureux-Mason, executive director of Tourism Moose Jaw.

The official provincial numbers for 2017 were released two weeks ago and visits from within Canada went up 9.4 per cent from the previous year — well ahead of Canada’s overall growth rate of 2.1 per cent. Visitor spending increased by 10.4 per cent compared to 2016 as visitors spent $1.88 billion in 2017. L’Heureux-Mason said they will receive a more detailed breakdown of the Stats Can numbers from 2017 soon and she is curious how Moose Jaw compares to the rest of the province.

“Regina and Saskatoon took a huge growth, so I’m anxious to see how that reflects on us,” she said. It was a slow start to the year with unseasonably cold spring weather coupling with a bevy of construction and infrastructure projects turning the city into a maze of closed roadways.

“We had a sluggish early spring and I was getting a little… not nervous because we know when we get our phone calls from people planning their trips in the spring we know we’re going to have a good summer,” L’Heureux-Mason said.

Tourism Moose Jaw expanded their tourist information booths downtown. L’Heureux-Mason said that their visitor numbers are up by 12 per cent compared to last year and even accounting for the increased locations, that’s a positive sign.

“Our numbers have really expanded down there, so that tells me that downtown is really bustling,” she said “When we’ve talked to restaurants to check in on numbers, overall everybody seems to be pleased. “We’ve noticed a huge influx from Manitoba. That’s been one of the ones that’s come to us a little more frequently than we noticed in the past. We did do a trade show in Manitoba, so that could have some impact on it.”

Considering that there haven’t been any major concerts this summer or other one-off events that may draw an influx of visitors into the city, the trends are even more positive.

“I think RuBarb helped us get off to a strong start for our August with Mary Poppins,” L’Heureux-Mason said. “We have Sidewalk Days in July which has really started to turn into a bit of a draw. Considering there hasn’t really been that one big ticket item, it’s good.” In fact, L’Heureux-Mason feels that some of the big events that they hosted a year ago are still drawing people to city after the national spotlight shone on Moose Jaw.

“We strongly feel that all of the incredible organic marketing we got last year from One Horse Town, Rogers Hometown Hockey and the Amazing Race was great. There was just so much… bang, bang, bang, bang. I think we’ve only started to see that return,” she said. “I think it’s going to be something even greater.” The summer hasn’t been without its challenges for Tourism Moose Jaw. Their trolley hasn’t been running this summer which means that their own numbers will be down for the year. They’ve also used the Wrapture Limosine party bus to still offer their Daytime tour and their Ghost tour daily.

“We had a major breakdown so instead of investing more money into that, we decided to complete the rebuild that we were working on in the spring and just didn’t quite get done before the season started,” L’Heureux-Mason said of their old trolley. “We’re not sure when we’re getting back, but at this point we’re using the Wrapture party bus to do tours so we can get out there and stay relevant. They’ve been great to us.” Tourists have felt the city has been great to them as well. While it appears more people are visiting the city, the people that are coming are leaving more positive feedback than usual.

“We get feedback and we know that you get about one positive comment for every 10 negative comments. That’s just human nature,” L’Heureux-Mason said. “We’ve found, this year we got several extremely positive message on social media which is nice. We always hear how surprising it is how much there is to do here. That’s great, but what we’ve been hearing this year is just the quality of the service people have been getting and people have been thrilled with their options for dining.”