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It was a night of conversation, and ideas that could impact sports and tourism locally.
Destination Stratford along with the Stratford BIA held the Leveraging Sport Tourism event Monday night.
A decent sized crowd consisting of business owners and members of the sports community showed up to the auditorium at city hall.
“To me sport is anything where you are moving your body,” director of sports development and tourism for Destination Stratford Kylie Wasser told the audience.
Wasser made a presentation to everyone in attendance where she talked about ways to bridge the gap between tourism and sport, and some strategies to bring the two together.
Destination Stratford is working on launching a sports and tourism portal, sort of a one stop shop for residents, and visitors alike that will feature things like where to eat, where to stay, what to do.
“We understand that this is not a one size fits all solution for all businesses, however we are working on enhancing our communication with the business community,” said Wasser.
Wasser added, “There are two main strategies, tied-in, which would see direct involvement with events, and tied-on which can include being aware of events and hanging something in the window like a soccer ball to support a soccer tournament. This would also help show that teams, and people involved are welcome.”
During the event it was unveiled that there are three major events planned for 2025 already.
On Jan. 18th there will be a glow-in-the-dark bonspiel, so businesses are encouraged to do things that promote black light experiences or glow experiences.
On March 21 to 23 the Skate Canada Provincial Championships will be held, bringing close to 2,000 participants along with their friends, family and team or roughly 6,000 people total to Stratford.
New in 2025 is the first annual 5 K run to coincide with the April 6th White Swan release that already draws people far and wide to the area.
According to Destination Stratford over 14 million people live within a three hour drive of Stratford which opens up a wide range of opportunities for tourism regardless of what kind of event is being offered.
