Previous
Getting our share of the tourists
We’ve turned the corner into summer. There’s heat (and humidity) in the air, school’s almost out, the farmers’ market has had its opening day, as has the York Durham Heritage Railway. The home tour is past and the garden tour is almost upon us.
All across the province, all across the country, indeed all around the world, late spring is when people start to get restless, start to make travel plans, start to think about where they’re going to find adventures for the kids, or the grand-kids, or just expand their own horizons. Hundreds of millions of people are looking for some new wonderful place to explore. And this year, with high cost of fuel, a lot of Ontarians are looking closer to home for that experience. For a place with an abundance of attractions and events, the summer of 2011 is a glorious economic opportunity.
Our township has just such an abundance. We were home for 15 years to one of the world’s most popular writers, a home which has finally been fully restored. We possess one of the most beautiful buildings in Ontario, the unique Foster Memorial, with concerts every weekend throughout the summer. Our Highland Games have the loveliest setting of any such event in North America. We are the Trails Capital of Canada, and anyone who ventures into the woods will soon see why. We have prize-winning farms with a fascinating introduction to agriculture for the children; we have award-winning shops in our very attractive downtown. We have a historic railway which chugs through some truly gorgeous terrain. We have a fine array of restaurants, a movie theatre straight out of the 40s.
As a tourist destination, we do have a few negatives. Our downtown has a few blights. We don’t have much water, and don’t make very good use of the water we do have. We have almost no overnight accommodation, with no prospect of any on the horizon.
There’s not a lot of consistency to when our restaurants or shops are open.
The positives, however, overwhelmingly outweigh the other. Uxbridge is a place any lover of nature, or history, or literature, or music, ought to have on his or her to-do list some day. So why, come Thanksgiving, when the museum and farmers’ market and other attractions fold their tents for the season, will we look back on the summer of 2011 as an opportunity somehow lost, a bonanza we let slip through our fingers?
The answer is in one word: promotion. The average Ontarian, or even the average Canadian, should know about Uxbridge, but he doesn’t. Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote one book in PEI, eleven in Leaskdale, but where do the Anne-lovers flock? There is a provincial publication on fascinating trails for the family to follow; the “Trails Capital” isn’t in it.
The Region of Durham has a tourism department which, to be fair, tries to spread the wealth among its eight member municipalities, but it’s not enough. We deserve better. In this term of Council, we hope that an aggressive tourism strategy will be developed which will eliminate the negatives cited above, but will focus on getting out the word, effectively and thoroughly, on why Uxbridge should be on everybody’s “1,000 Places to See Before I Die”.
