The world of sport tourism was the focus of an event bringing together representatives from a number of different industries.
Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island held a Sport Tourism Meet & Greet on Wednesday evening at the Walkerville Brewery, bringing together sport rights holders and local hoteliers, municipalities, attractions and businesses that cater to the sports industry in a networking-style tradeshow.
Sport Tourism ranks as a top reason for visitors to Windsor Essex each year, with more than 14,000 rooms nights alone booked in Windsor in 2023 by sport groups.
CEO Gordon Orr says the goal of the meet and greet was to connect planners with suppliers to make future event planning and hotel booking processes easier for both parties.
"We'd like to link our hotels and our sport venues with the sport organizers to help ease their planning as they look forward to the future of what sort of tournaments or events they'd like to bring to the city, and this is sort of one stop shopping," he said.
Orr says it's essential to have people on both sides come together in person, rather than over the phone or email, to make the important connections that can spur future events locally.
"Here we're also listening and updating our sport event rosters so we know what events and tournaments are coming to the region. And at the same time we can also make those in-person connections and then continue that conversation going through until the execution of the event."
This was a way for the planners to have a better understanding of which weekends are busy, what hotels are booked for a certain time, and just trying to find opportunities that make the most sense for everyone involved.
Orr says people taking in the event from the planning side were made up of those who already had events planned in Windsor-Essex, and those thinking about possibly coming here.
"They want to make connections, see how they can do it, and make it an easier process for them. It's all about really the engagement, the networking, the opportunity to bring hoteliers, sport venues, and sport organizers together. Then to help educate them on how they can assist each other," he said.
Sports tourism has really been on the rise over the last number of years, and Orr says it's a big priority for TWEPI.
In 2022, tourism in general helped welcome 4.4 million people to the region which accounted for an economic impact of $669 million.