JP Desrosiers, director of community services, along with Jeff Sheculski, the city’s event and corporate services manager, presented the draft sport and event tourism strategy at the recent community services committee meeting.
But the business of sport and event tourism is competitive and growing fast, why, said the community services director, the city needs to have a solid strategy in place.
“It is not the same as it was back in our heyday,” Desrosiers told councillors at a recent community services committee meeting. “Many communities are turning to sport tourism as sort of a grassroots of economic development strategies, utilizing sport to be sort of the stabilizing force in a volatile tourism industry.”
According to the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance (CSTA), in 2010 spending associated with sport tourism in Canada reached $5.1 billion, an increase of almost nine per cent from the total only two years prior.
The decrease in spending in other tourism sectors was 0.7 per cent over the same period, illustrating, said Desrosiers, the importance of sport tourism.
He said sport tourism is “resistant” to economic downturns and engages many families who plan ‘sportcations’ — vacations planned around a sporting event.
Sport tourism represents more than 15,000 visitors to Summerside annually and accounts for 21.3 per cent of local hotel occupancy rates, he noted.
“Between $8 and $10 million of the tourism sector in Summerside is related to sport tourism,” said Desrosiers. “Our goal is to continue to grow sport event tourism and insert new wealth into our local operators’ pockets and insight into redeveloping existing operations and potentially new development moving forward.”
He added a “more focused approach” by his department in 2012 resulted in a 306 per cent increase in sporting events hosted in Summerside in the last five years.
“We went from 17 tournaments in 2009 to up and over 80 tournaments this year. That results in about 100,000 athletes, parents and visitors, visiting Summerside over the past five years, 52,000 of which we estimate are from off Island,” said Desrosiers. “Those are big numbers. I would suggest that our accommodators and our tourism sector would certainly miss that if those visitors weren’t here.”
With facilities such as Credit Union Place, Queen Elizabeth Park and the Eric Johnston Turf Field, along with other sport and recreational spaces, Desrosiers said Summerside is well position to host national and international sporting events.
“A more formalized approach and strategy will allow national sport bodies to see how awarding events to Summerside is part of a bigger picture for our community.”
The hope is council approve the strategy and, once that is done, allocate money in his department’s 2016 operations budget to implement, provide an event support service, an event process and hire a sport tourism co-ordinator, a position, for the time being, being filled by summer intern.
“The timing is right,” added Desrosiers.
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The numbers
— $2.75 million — 2013 RBC Cup
— $1.78 million — 2014 Gran Slam of Curling Players Championships
— $1.8 million — 2015 FIVB World League Volleyball event
— $770,000 — 2015 U21 Women’s National Softball Championship
— Annual impact $4.7 million from amateur/minor sport tourism
— Participant/spectator spend between $75 and $500 per day
— In 2014, Summerside played host to 69 sport events
— In 2015, hosting over 80 local, regional, national, international
— Sport tourism represents more than 15,000 visitors to city annually
— 97,817 athletes, coaches, parents participated in tournaments in Summerside in the past five years; 52,400 were from out of province
— In 2014, more than 69 sanctioned local tournaments with 18,745 participants, including 9,682 from outside Summerside, 5,686 from off Island
