On the Council agenda this week (4/14/14) there is an excellent report presenting a draft 3 year community tourism plan. You can read it here. I call it excellent as it is evident that a very thoughtful process has been undertaken including a very smart decision to leverage the financial capability and expertise of Central Counties Tourism and significant inclusion of people who know King best i.e. residents and business owners.  The report presents an action plan and targets/goals.  And it makes very clear that we will need to make a commitment in our 2015 budget if we are to achieve the goals.  Overall, in my opinion the strategy does seek to leverage what is unique and special about King.  I do question the absence of any clear reference to our cultural heritage; I will be asking about this at Council.

The potential benefit to our businesses, to our economic well being is well defined.  Day trippers spend $43/day in King whereas the provincial average is $51.  With execution of the actions it is not unreasonable to target for match the provincial average.   And if we could tap into the spending gap of the “overnighters” there would be more.

To elaborate on my question about the lack of reference to our cultural heritage.  Even though I believe that the municipality is missing important opportunities to protect and preserve heritage properties, we do still have cultural heritage to see and visit in King today.  There is the atmosphere of  Main Street Schomberg.  What about leveraging our map of historical and heritage sites throughout the Township?  Also there is planned 400th anniversary re-enactment, so to speak, of the 12 day journey by Etienne Brûlé and 12 companions from Orillia to mouth of the Humber, scheduled for September 4-7, 2015; current details call for the courageous and strong participants to over night in King. You can read about it here.

The report identifies the hurdles and challenges ahead of us.  I quite agree that poor public transit infrastructure is a critical one.  I also think that poor mobile device coverage is also critical as good coverage would enable information dissemination about history, natural heritage, heritage sites without littering the landscape with signs.  In addition, sign creation, installation and maintenance is expensive and never ending.

In summary:  worthwhile opportunities to make King more sustainable have been identified.