Lakehead University students presented tourism project to City of Thunder Bay
Fourth-year students Meredith Davy, Alischa Bower, Jake O'Flaherty, and Karter Sutch presented to Paul Pepe, Manager of Tourism, City of Thunder Bay, on Tuesday.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - Thunder Bay
Fourth-year students Meredith Davy, Alischa Bower, Jake O'Flaherty, and Karter Sutch presented to Paul Pepe, Manager of Tourism, City of Thunder Bay, on Tuesday.
In the fall of 2016, students in Lakehead University’s School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism completed two major tourism projects for Tourism Northern Ontario.
One of these was focused on the Visiting Friends and Relatives market, which is an undervalued segment for many places, yet often forms the largest visitor segment.
Students developed a series of itineraries that could respond to the question, “what can we do when friends or family visit?”
They evaluated one of the itineraries by personally experiencing the activities and locations on the route. Being students without personal transport, they utilized their bus pass to reach all their destinations.
One outcome was they realized that small to medium sized cities may benefit from utilizing existing public transit as part of a tourism product.
As many people have witnessed in large urban centers, there are privately owned “on again, off again” buses that tour visitors around the city to see the major attractions. In a smaller center with fewer visitors, this may not be a feasible business.
However, by creating interesting tourism itineraries based on local attractions, restaurants, natural spaces, and shopping, and linking them through the use of public transit, it may provide the opportunity for cities to expand their tourism product offerings in a sustainable way.
During this winter’s term, four students within the School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism undertook a project in partnership with City of Thunder Bay Departments of Tourism and Transit to examine the potential of public transit routes and the development of tourism itineraries within the city.
The outcomes of their project was presented to both departments on Tuesday, April 11 at Lakehead University.
The group of students included Alischa Bower, Meredith Davy, Jake O’Flaherty, and Karter Sutch.
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Media: For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact Brandon Walker, Media Relations Officer, at (807) 343-8177, or mediarelations@lakeheadu.ca.
Lakehead University has about 9,700 full-time equivalent students and 2,000 faculty and staff in 10 faculties at two campuses in Orillia and Thunder Bay, Ontario. Lakehead is a fully comprehensive university: home to Ontario’s newest Faculty of Law in 44 years, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and faculties of Engineering, Business Administration, Health & Behavioural Sciences, Social Sciences & Humanities, Science & Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management, Education, and Graduate Studies. In 2016, for the second consecutive year, Re$earch Infosource ranked Lakehead first among Canada’s undergraduate universities. Visit www.lakeheadu.ca.