The Lethbridge Sport Council and Tourism Lethbridge have signed an agreement to work together on expanding sport tourism in the city.
The agreement formalizes a long standing relationship between the organization and will include oversight of the Sport Tourism Advisory Committee, response to requests for proposals and coordinating sales missions and special projects.
“Lethbridge is a sport town, we know this and there have been so many great events that have happened here in Lethbridge and all of that is tourism related. This is exactly what tourism is about and so this partnership is extremely important to us,” said Erin Crane, CEO of Tourism Lethbridge. “For us it’s about building capacity. That’s a lot of what we are doing here and this is where I think Lethbridge Sport Council really comes in to help do that. They work directly with those sport organizations and can help get them to that event ready place.”
Lethbridge hosted the Tim Hortons Brier curling tournament in March last year, which Tourism Lethbridge says brought $16.8 million of economic activity to the area. Bringing in more events like this is one aim of the partnership, but Susan Eymann, executive director of Lethbridge Sport Council, said it is also important to look at smaller events. She said there are many weekend tournaments that bring people to the community and these can be expanded on also.
“We are doing an audit of where we are now and looking at what are the priorities then and what’s within our capacity so it really is just about reinvigorating the partnership with all the stakeholders,” Eymann said. “Although sport tourism often gets talked about economic impact and that economic growth in the community, for us sport is the more important word in sport tourism and it’s about developing our sport organization and sport opportunities for our residents.”
Crane said she wants the partnership to not only work to bring new people to Lethbridge, but to get people who are cloning her to stay longer and explore the area.