A conference was held recently that examined the state of cycling tourism in Niagara. Brenda Schultz has the details in this report.
Millions of tourists visit Niagara each year today a conference is being held to ensure that more of them experience it on top of one of these this session today is called connecting the dots for cycling tourism it’s really bringing urban and rural together so my dream is
That Waynflete gets as much ink on this tourism product as my Agri falls and niagara-on-the-lake because that cyclist wants to ride in Wainfleet not a lot of cars there by the water they want to go to Port Colborne the south coast that’s what I want to make sure that they value
Themselves enough to get in the game with us I want it to be a regional product the tourism infrastructure that’s already in place in Niagara lends itself to growing the cycling tourism market last year was her launch here and was kind of a soft launch where we wanted to organically have a few
Different clients try it out iren out the kinks but the word’s gotten out that the people who did it the first year loved it and word of mouth is great so there’s all sorts of people across the u.s. and Canada saying well we’ve had this great bike experience in Niagara we
Ate we drank recycled we saw the scenery and then this year we’ve got all these tour operators from all around the world who sell different packages and tour some of them are flying drive tours some of them are tours to Toronto but now they are pushing the good word about
Cycling and agri and booking our tours on our behalf so I think that 2016 2017 the bike tour business will grow having spectacular bike tours is one thing but safety is also an important consideration now yeah the Niagara region has several communities that have been given a bicycle friendly
Communities award by our organization the share the road cycling coalition and I believe that is Grimsby Welland Thorold st. Catharines and Pelham have all been recognized for the wonderful things that they are doing to promote cycling and we’re very hopeful that the other municipalities within the region
Will be applying to our program in the very near future sounds like we are going from the idea to the action I would certainly say so especially over the last five years in Niagara but across Ontario we’re really seeing more people take to their bikes that’s because municipalities are
Stepping up and building communities where people want to bike but I also think that there’s a general excitement that’s really starting to take hold in Ontario about cycling and it’s something that people want to do Dave Tess Levitch former mayor of madison wisconsin was today’s keynote speaker he talked about
His experience promoting cycling there Madison became over the course of the last few years one of the five best cycling communities in in the States and that does a lot for us it’s a great way to promote the city there are people shopping for a place to live who
Literally look at those bicycle friendly community ratings and so it does a lot for Economic Development even if you never get on a bike you benefit from the city being a great bike community I think Niagara is perfectly situated for an explosive growth in cycling you’ve got the right topography relatively flat
Easy to bike you’ve got a great roadway network you’ve got a great trail system one of the finest I’ve ever seen and you’ve got great places to bite too with the wineries and the falls and the canals and communities that are not too large you know it’s hard to cycle into
Metro Toronto just because it’s so big but you’ve got so many communities here that are of a manageable size that you can get in and out of and feel safe so I think you’ve got everything lined up I’m Brandi Schultz and you are watching the source