The new Lethbridge and District Exhibition Agrifood Hub and trade centre will begin hosting events next month. CEO Mike Warkentin spoke at a Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs on June 1 to share the impact the new facility will have on the community. He says the facility will still host local events, but the focus is shifting to a larger scale.
“We will still be a community gathering place for this community to come together but it’s also about attracting new people, eyes and investment here into southern Alberta and so when we open our doors, our sales process is actually going to be focusing on attracting provincial association, national association events and we are actually just dipping our toe into bidding on international agricultural events that will bring numbers like 800-1,500 international delegates here into southern Alberta,” Warkentin says.
Warkentin notes the biggest barrier to large scale events is the amount of accommodation in the city and says the exhibition is actively looking for hotel investment to build on site accommodation.
“We hit two limits pretty quick when we start talking about 800-1,500 delegates — we have a ceiling on the number of hotel rooms that we have here in the market so we will need to see investment, we will need to drive investment in that sector and then in our air traffic,” he says.
Warkentin adds many people have said air traffic could be the biggest limiting factor for the new venue, but he says that is not true.
“We have had multiple conversations with the airline that services Lethbridge, that it is absolutely on a supply and demand curve and so there is multiple opportunities for WestJet to increase [volume] to get more delegates into the community.”
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