Rainy Lake Square seeing success this year. Photo courtesy Rainy Lake Square/Facebook
The pandemic is allowing Fort Frances to do more planning around its tourism industry.
The town’s economic development advisor Tannis Drysdale says they did hire a digital engagement agency that tracked people on their mobile devices when they were in the area this summer.
“We were able to do pin drops based on consumer behaviour, target specific consumers, and then go back and target and re-target on multiple different platforms to attract and inform tourists about our area,” says Drysdale.
Drysdale says any marketing was kept to areas that had very low COVID rates, such as other parts of northwestern Ontario and Winnipeg.
Use of the Rainy Lake Square is at an all-time high. The downtown square has been open to markets primarily. Drysdale says it’s been their most successful year.
“For spacing reasons, we’ve been turning away vendors, but we’ve had up to 18 vendors any individual week, and we look forward to that success sharing on 2021.”
Drysdale is recommending the town consider keeping access to the square free in the future.
Businesses in the Fort Frances area also finding support during the pandemic.
The Rainy River Future Development Corporation was out quickly with a loan program at the start.
Drysdale says the federal government reacted with a program of its own shortly afterward.
“In total, we have almost 90 loans in process, and almost 50 of them completed and written and the money out.”
Fifty-three of the loans went to Fort Frances businesses. Thirty-eight are tourism-related. Twenty of those loans were provided by the RRFDC’s program.
