A regional collaborative initiative to attract more people to the Townships
The Eastern Townships Tourism Bureau, led by an advisory committee, has launched ‘vision attractivité Cantons-de-l’est’, a collaborative plan to attract, welcome and retain more workers, residents and tourists in the region.
The President of Tourisme Cantonsde-l'est, Jean-michel Ryan, who also acts as co-chair of the initiative, commented, "This approach is not purely a tourism project. The experience of the last 30 years of our organization shows us that visitors sometimes turn into residents and workers. We attract more than 9 million visitors each year to the region. We would all be winners if some of them chose our region to live and work.”
Ryan went on to say that in order to accomplish that goal, stakeholders must work together and identify what actions can be shared or pooled to be more effective at the regional level by reinforcing the local, organizational and corporate strategies that must remain.
The new initiative will take place over the next two years and include four steps.
The first step, which has already begun, will bring together over 50 organizations operating throughout the Eastern Townships. The different groups will identify and discuss obstacles related to attracting more people to the area, while sharing actions and projects that already bear fruit and could be deployed more widely in the territory.the second phase of the project will be a major regional conference on Tuesday, June 19 in Sherbrooke, which will bring together some 150 regional players who wish to participate in the identification of concrete and collective solutions to make the Townships more attractive. Best practices and interesting models from abroad, Quebec and within the region will be presented as examples to draw from.
The third and fourth steps will include a summit scheduled for next October to take stock of information gathered, followed by the development of a regional action plan, which could be implemented as early as 2019.
Citizens of the Eastern Townships are also invited to participate in the reflection and brainstorming process. They are invited to share their ideas to make our region more attractive and welcoming to workers, residents and visitors alike. Citizens can submit their ideas on the website www.visionattractivite.com in the "Your ideas" section.