9. Why are Collingwood, Thornbury and Tobermory active tourist destinations while Owen Sound, relatively speaking, is ignored? Are we adequately promoting our music and cultural events and hiking/snowshoeing/skiing opportunities? How can tourism be more effectively promoted?

MAYOR

Ray Botten
We cannot go forward until we eliminate some very troublesome social issues! When we do support the homeless with its safety/security concerns, we will have paved the way to trust our tourism to be the next step into prosperity. We must first take care of the needy!!! Thus, we as a community will re-open The Sanctuary (Emergency Homeless Shelter). We need to understand that without a safe city we will not be in any position to welcome the tourists from around the world that we desire!

Ian Boddy
We have some great cultural and recreational attractions and events to be proud of. I do not believe we are ignored given the success of our events. We need to share positive stories about our successes and stop dwelling on our perceived inferiority. We need to continue to leverage the City's tourism budget partnering with private businesses, Grey County and Ontario RTO7 and promote our unique features.

DEPUTY MAYOR

Paul Patille
We can advertise our city with a low cost publicity campaign to show what Owen Sound has to offer. But before we do that, we need to know what we have to offer in terms of tourism.
We should all ask the question. What do we have to offer that will attract people from all over Ontario.

Brian O'Leary
One key action in our 2015 Strategy Plan was to leverage the city's assets and enhance tourism. In 2017, we launched a new marketing campaign – Are You Most! This campaign was not only targeted at attracting young millenialpreneurs to relocate and start a business in Owen Sound, but to create awareness about the Owen Sound brand. This campaign was a huge success. We have grown our website hits from 20,000 to 31,000 views per month. In 2017, we served 12,600 at our tourism office compared to 8000 in 2013. We have grown our social media presence to include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – a growing following. I believe Owen Sound has a lot to offer. I will continue to support tourism and also work to leverage city tourism and initiatives of the County of Grey. I will continue to support events like Harbourfest, Movie Nights, Harbour Nights, which are all free for residents and visitors. I will also continue to support capital investment in parks and trails, which is so important to tourism.

COUNCILLORS

Riel Warrilow
Owen sound lacks the tourism infrastructure that Collingwood has, and the marketing that the national park by Tobermory has. In order to avoid ending up with the situation they have on the Bruce, we need to have a long-term plan.

Jacquie Furtner
Our tourism department has done some innovative programming and I think they do a great job promoting our town. Of course, more can always be done.

Arts, culture and outdoor activity are the heart and soul of Owen Sound. We should be encouraging more of this and promoting it as much as possible. I would like to see the city, economic development, OSDIA, tourism, etc. collaborating to work towards a shared vision of what Owen Sound can be. Every brand needs a focus. Why should people come here? I strongly believe that this is our arts, culture and outdoor activity.

We also need to remember that people will visit a place for one reason, but while they are there, their main activities are shopping, dining and entertainment. We have to work on ways to attract more shops, restaurants and have later hours of operation downtown for this to be appealing. People will come back again and again if they have a good experience.

Denae Moores
It can be effectively promoted by being made a priority and it should be. Our neighbouring communities have exceptional amenities and they should be proud. It doesn't hurt us to have strong neighbours.

But we have things they don't have. Our arts and cultural community is outstanding. Our festivals, our foods, outdoor trails and our celebrations are second to none. So let's treat them like that. What sets other communities apart is marketing. Let's make it a priority for once and all.

John Tamming
You left out Southampton. I agree that, together with Meaford, we remain the plain ones at the dance, surrounded to the east and west by the cool crowd in skinny jeans and designer shades while we tuck in our plaid shirts and tool around in our Corollas. My book of lamentations in this regard is rather thick:

• The most attractive acreage in the downtown is occupied by a car repair shop. With all respect to its hard working proprietor, this is simply nuts.
• Those "planners" who in the seventies put strip malls and a beer store with their backs towards a stunning waterfront vista should have been fired for their utter lack of vision.
• You can stand at city hall and you may as well be downtown land locked Mount Forest. Until Mudtown Station opened, literally nothing seduced locals and visitors to amble down towards the harbourfront.
• Next time your readers are idling in front of the Centre for Personal Enhancement, look to the south of you and ask yourself (a couple of stores excluded) what tourists must think if we allow our most visible strip degenerate to such a condition.

Must of this can and will change with time. I refer to my ideas under paragraph 4.

That said, I don't know how we convince two men in front of a bank to put their shirts back on and keep their large dogs off the street. I don't see these scenes in Thornbury or Southampton and we are kidding ourselves if we think such sights do not dissuade tourists.

Again, there are some things under our control. I refer to two of our cultural assets – the library and gallery. First Avenue West has been called our living room. But for the better part of two years, the library addition has been in an embarrassing state of disrepair, with no fixed timeline to complete the floor and replace furnishings. It looks like no one cares. And if the city does not care about its own assets, why should anyone else?

The art gallery board and staff clearly dropped the budgetary ball but it is time to allow them to exit the penalty box, and to go out and hire the best cultural ambassador out there as director. It is also time for the five full time members of the gallery to figure out how to staff the place for more than 20 hours per week – a paltry number of hours more suitable for the Kimberly satellite library than for what should be our outstanding cultural jewel.

Marion Koepke
I think the City of Owen Sound and County of Grey Tourism Departments are working hard and doing a good job currently of promoting Owen Sound for its amenities. We have a very active summer season with events and promotion of our music and cultural events. We are not designated as a "tourist destination" at this point and there has been some review of businesses registering under the "retail business holidays act" to allow retail operations to open on Sundays and statutory holidays. Thornbury and Tobermory clearly have a niche and I think we are slowly getting there and making our City more widely known for its culture.

Gail McCartney
This is a really good question. Those of us who live here know how awesome a place Owen Sound is so why doesn't everyone?

I suspect it has something to do with our dismal looking waterfront and lack of the kind of accommodation that is available elsewhere. I think that Council looking at these issues would be the most beneficial and then get the Social Media pros take it from there.

Travis Dodd
Collingwood and Tobermory all have distinct destination attractions that are driving tourists to these locations. Collingwood has the Blue Mountain Resort and Tobermory has a popular National Park.

I believe there is always room for improvement at being better at promoting what we have here in Owen Sound. An example of a project I would also support could be reviewing/creating a County wide tourism platform/strategy. There are also opportunities to leverage our Regional Tourism Organization (RTO7) to share our story while tapping into their funding.

Tourists that visit Collingwood and Thornbury don't just stay in these areas. So we do need to show visitors that we offer something different from what they are experiencing in our neigbouring municipalities. Owen Sound offers a rich arts and cultural opportunity, beautiful natural attributes and as a community we celebrate local business – we need to tell our story.

Brock Hamley
With an iconic waterfront, year-round recreational activities, and the friendly feel of a small town, Owen Sound has everything going for it when it comes to a potential tourism destination, yet that hasn't been the case. While we know about the hidden gems, more needs to be done to showcase the city to a wider audience. Improved social media strategies, such as partnerships with content creators or advertisements, mentions in online or tourism publications read by young couples and families, as well as attracting the film and television industry have great potential to generate buzz about the shopping, leisure and recreational opportunities in Owen Sound.

Steven Hencze
There is no comparison to Collingwood / Thornbury ... they have a 100 million dollar ski village .. and people with money ... not enough people want to drive 3 hours to hike / snowshoe .. we need a niche here ... like summer folk and the salmon derby .. proof that a good event draws people to the area

Richard Thomas
Unlike Collingwood, which has Blue Mountain, and Tobermory, which has the Bruce Peninsula National Park, Owen Sound has no single large attraction. That said, I would challenge your statement that Owen Sound is ignored by tourists. Try to rent a hotel room during the summer months here; you can't. Walk along Main Street and ask the retailers whether tourists are finding us—they are. Could we do better? Absolutely. I think that part of the issue is funding, and the resources we allocate to tourism as a community. That's one of the reasons I opposed the closure of the visitors centre in the former CNR station. I'd like to see more money allocated to tourism and marketing and if I'm elected I will push to increase the tourism budget.

Bill Twaddle
I don't agree that Owen Sound is "relatively" ignored. It just has different natural assets that appeal to a different population segment than the examples cited. We can look with envy on the natural assets of Blue or Northern Bruce Peninsula, but we need to ensure that we promote what we have and continue to make sure we are part of the regional promotion. One of our biggest assets is our amazing volunteer base. Without them our hugely popular events like Summerfolk and the Salmon Derby could not happen.

Carol Merton
The municipality should always build on the strengths, attractions, culture and geographic advantages in its promotion of tourism. We are not Collingwood, Thornbury or Tobermory. I don't believe we should compare ourselves to them nor feel any better or worse than they are. We are Owen Sound with many unique qualities that we need to continue to promote and market.