Perth County will be launching a new program next year to help local businesses and tourism outlets recover from COVID-19.
With $45,800.00 through the OMAFRA Rural Economic Development (RED) program, the county will help local businesses create unique experiences. Perth County Tourism Officer Ashley Brockelbank says they will use the money to launch new experiential tourism initiatives.
"What that means is enabling our tourism operators, businesses and destinations to offer travellers meaningful experiences where they can really immerse with the place they're visiting."
Brockelbank says they will help businesses and tourist destinations in Perth develop these new experiences that will be more personal and hands on for tourists that come to the area looking for a more personal touch.
"What we're finding is that people are kind of edging away from those mass tourism experiences and they don't want to visit places with big crowds and the experience is more curated. They want those authentic, real experiences, activities and adventures."
With the program set to launch in 2021, Brockelbank notes they will have some time to get different destinations and businesses ready to offer those new experiences for visitors when the COVID-19 pandemic is hopefully behind us.
"We're going to be doing it through some workshops, some one-on-one training with our businesses. So helping them to really build out a market-ready experience, and a lot of our businesses already have ideas."
Perth County Warden Jim Aitcheson says the OMAFRA funding is very appreciated, as local tourism was hammered by the pandemic.
“We appreciate OMAFRA’s support for the Perth County Certified Experience Program and look forward to rolling this program out in 2021. Our tourism operators have been extremely resilient throughout the pandemic and the support for this initiative will help to position them for a strong recovery and economic prosperity in 2021 and beyond.” says Warden Aitcheson.
“Nobody should underestimate the economic importance of tourism to Perth County and our entire area,” adds Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece, who also serves as Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. “This has been such a difficult time for many local businesses,” he added. “I want to congratulate the County in this important initiative, and I thank them for their leadership in supporting local tourism operators.”
