The key to helping your municipality benefit from snowmobiling is to make it a"snowmobile friendly" community.
From a tourism perspective, this means welcoming snowmobilers and encouraging them to visit our municipality by making it easy for them to access needed services and amenities by snowmobile. It means fostering a business environment that encourages local business, chambers of commerce and economic development offices to cater to and promote snowmobiling.
From a business perspective, becoming "snowmobile friendly" also means offering your local club the support, assistance, resources necessary to operate like a professional business, and to make the most effective and efficient use of its volunteers.
From a community perspective, becoming "snowmobile friendly" also offers your residents many winter recreational, social and health benefits derived from snowmobile patronage, activity and commerce. The political community must also work together with snowmobile clubs to enhance and implement the overall objective, which in turn benefits the community as a whole.
Our municipality can benefit from the winter tourism dollar generated by snowmobiling trails.
There are 260 local snowmobile clubs throughout Ontario and one of them may be located in your area. It is a non profit entity, comprised of a dedicated group of local volunteers who live and work in your community. These volunteers take it upon themselves to provide groomed snowmobile trails for the enjoyment, well being and recreation of their families, friends, neighbours and visitors.
The local trails provided by these club volunteers occur primarily in rural Ontario and connect to other local and regional networks to form the OFSC provincial trail system.
It is the largest recreational trail system in the world and it generates over $1 billion dollars in economic activity to Ontario each winter.
For "snow belt" municipalities, the good news is that a substantial part of this economic impact occurs in rural Ontario. This dynamic can have a significant affect for those who participate because other winter activities, business, and opportunities are limited. Best of all, municipalities can tap into the benefits of organized snowmobiling with very minimal direct investment. Recreational snowmobiling does not require the same funding such as the local arena, curling rink and other public recreational facilities . Facilities such as the aforementioned require a large initial capital outlay, continuous operating/maintenance expenses and wages paid by your municipality which at times, can be a burden to local rate-payers. Your local snowmobile trails already exist, operated by volunteers and usually at no cost to you.
These snowmobile trails are already generating economic impact each winter. Many municipalities are realizing and the enjoying these benefits because they made a conscious effort and decision to make their area "snowmobile friendly". As a result, these municipalities are visited regularly by snowmobile riders each winter. Snowmobile riders stop to buy fuel, food, lodgings, services, repairs and many other goods and amenities of the surrounding community. It's been said that the only thing snowmobilers carry is a wallet. This in turn means that they are more than willing to spend in communities that welcome and embrace snowmobile activities.
The economic impact of snowmobiling in Ontario is growing. It has been recognized by the Ministry of Tourism as our premier winter opportunity. The marketing of snowmobile tourism has become a number one priority. A major new campaign is underway to encourage Ontario residents to snowmobile in the Province, to attract out of Province visitors from the U.S. border states, and from our neighbouring Provinces. As the tourism market is influenced by this initiative during the next five years or so, the economic impact of snowmobile tourism will become even more significant and beneficial to local communities.
Shouldn't OUR Municipality be positioned to benefit?
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