(Originally published in TOURISM)
Sometimes, just helping establish a connection between an investor and an investment opportunity is all it takes. That is the thinking behind the Ontario government's web-based investment initiative (www.2ontario.com/tourism) that, according to Ontario's James Lynn is the most comprehensive one of its kind. Says Lynn (a senior investment consultant at the Ontario Ministry of Tourism’s Investment and Development Office): “As far as we know, we have never found another tourism investment website with the depth of knowledge of this website.”
Lynn provided TOURISM with a guided visit to the website and its associated investment newsletter. The Regional Tourism Investment Opportunities section is the first stop. “If I am an investor, I can search for investment opportunities either by sector or by region. For example, if I want to build a resort in Ontario, listings and municipalities are there.”
Business cases are prepared and made available online by economic development officials in those communities, he continues. “I spend a great deal of time talking to them about this resource that is available to them for free. We were very successful in the Town of Iroquois Falls, which put an ad online to attract an investor to come and build a hotel; as of 2006, an investor did contact them and, as far as I know, the negotiations are still taking place on the development of that hotel. So here is a wonderful example of where government has stepped in, assisting municipalities by creating this conduit to the investment community.”
In Lynn’s view, the rationale for developing a resource like this is simple enough. “If I was an investor sitting down in Atlanta, Georgia, and received hundreds of different proposals from communities saying ‘come build here', it is difficult to narrow down (the opportunities). By providing this one website and a site selector, an investor can sit back and say ‘let's find out what Ontario is looking for right now.’”
The website is the culmination of a community tourism development process that involves spending time with the communities, going through things like SWOT analyses or the Tourist Destinations Framework (an assessment and evaluation tool used to develop an inventory, analyze a region’s tourism amenities and attractions and identify opportunities for tourism investment and development). The framework is designed to result in a strategic action plan for tourism to improve the region’s performance in the tourism marketplace.
And, as a periodical reminder of Ontario’s potential, the companion Investment Newsletter it is a timely, quarterly communications piece started in April. “We first went out with a Niagara edition because everybody knows Niagara and we are reaching out to an international audience with a database of over 2,500 investors, site selectors and real estate people - anybody who would be interested in the tourism industry. We give a quick overview of the region. We talked about Great Wolf Lodge and to the folks at Ripley’s (The Jim Pattison Group), and asked them ‘why did you build here? What were the reasons you chose Ontario?”
The following edition focused on the Muskoka region, followed by a Georgian Bay-themed edition, continues Lynn. “With the website and it components, we have created something a lot of other jurisdictions in the world are starting to emulate, and it is the world’s largest tourism investment website. If you do a Google search and type in ‘tourism investment’, we come up #1. We have really staked our place in cyberspace in terms of being able to get on investors' radar.”
Sometimes, just helping establish a connection between an investor and an investment opportunity is all it takes. That is the thinking behind the Ontario government's web-based investment initiative (www.2ontario.com/tourism) that, according to Ontario's James Lynn is the most comprehensive one of its kind. Says Lynn (a senior investment consultant at the Ontario Ministry of Tourism’s Investment and Development Office): “As far as we know, we have never found another tourism investment website with the depth of knowledge of this website.”
Lynn provided TOURISM with a guided visit to the website and its associated investment newsletter. The Regional Tourism Investment Opportunities section is the first stop. “If I am an investor, I can search for investment opportunities either by sector or by region. For example, if I want to build a resort in Ontario, listings and municipalities are there.”
Business cases are prepared and made available online by economic development officials in those communities, he continues. “I spend a great deal of time talking to them about this resource that is available to them for free. We were very successful in the Town of Iroquois Falls, which put an ad online to attract an investor to come and build a hotel; as of 2006, an investor did contact them and, as far as I know, the negotiations are still taking place on the development of that hotel. So here is a wonderful example of where government has stepped in, assisting municipalities by creating this conduit to the investment community.”
In Lynn’s view, the rationale for developing a resource like this is simple enough. “If I was an investor sitting down in Atlanta, Georgia, and received hundreds of different proposals from communities saying ‘come build here', it is difficult to narrow down (the opportunities). By providing this one website and a site selector, an investor can sit back and say ‘let's find out what Ontario is looking for right now.’”
The website is the culmination of a community tourism development process that involves spending time with the communities, going through things like SWOT analyses or the Tourist Destinations Framework (an assessment and evaluation tool used to develop an inventory, analyze a region’s tourism amenities and attractions and identify opportunities for tourism investment and development). The framework is designed to result in a strategic action plan for tourism to improve the region’s performance in the tourism marketplace.
And, as a periodical reminder of Ontario’s potential, the companion Investment Newsletter it is a timely, quarterly communications piece started in April. “We first went out with a Niagara edition because everybody knows Niagara and we are reaching out to an international audience with a database of over 2,500 investors, site selectors and real estate people - anybody who would be interested in the tourism industry. We give a quick overview of the region. We talked about Great Wolf Lodge and to the folks at Ripley’s (The Jim Pattison Group), and asked them ‘why did you build here? What were the reasons you chose Ontario?”
The following edition focused on the Muskoka region, followed by a Georgian Bay-themed edition, continues Lynn. “With the website and it components, we have created something a lot of other jurisdictions in the world are starting to emulate, and it is the world’s largest tourism investment website. If you do a Google search and type in ‘tourism investment’, we come up #1. We have really staked our place in cyberspace in terms of being able to get on investors' radar.”
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