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Downtown pop-up info centre helping drive visitors to city core

May 30, 2017 | 5:18 PM

 

MEDICINE HAT, AB — The city’s core is full of rich history.

“We have a historic downtown with the architecture in the community, but not just the buildings but the vibrancy, the people who are here,” said Jace Anderson with Tourism Medicine Hat.

It’s a message he’s hoping sells a new pop-up visitor information centre in the heart of downtown.

“There’s so much happening right now that we’ve known from a tourism stand point that it’s an integral driver for how people consider and contemplate spending time in our community and we want it to be more connected,” he added.

Construction earlier this year kept Rite Downtown Garden Centre from opening it’s doors.

Anderson said that’s when he and his team jumped at the opportunity to do something else with the space on Second Street.

“What do you do with this empty space and the sunniest city in Canada?” asked Mayor Ted Clugston. “You open up a tourist information centre and I think that was a great idea.”

Clugston was on hand Tuesday morning for the ribbon cutting ceremony.

The summer pop-up has information about the trail system and different tourist hot spots.

“There’s so much happening right now that we’ve known from a tourism stand point that it’s an integral driver for how people consider and contemplate spending time in our community and we want it to be more connected,” Anderson said.

Bikes will also be available to rent, free of charge.

It’s something the centre had success with in 2016.

“We heard from businesses last year in the downtown that they were seeing our bikes parked and chained up in front of restaurants and coffee shops because people would get on the bicycle at the tepee, ride through the trails, spend some time downtown and then likely have to gruellingly ride back up the hill to the visitor centre,” he said. “We didn’t tell them about the hill in reverse.”

Clugston said the city is slowly becoming a destination for travellers.

“We’re actually actively marketing downtown Medicine Hat and the breweries to the world right now,” he said. “I’ve lost track and I wouldn’t even be exaggerating if I said there were over 100 different tour promoters from around the world here in the last year. They’re actively selling Medicine Hat as part of their Banff packages, where you come to Banff for a couple days, maybe go to Drumheller, then come to Medicine Hat for a few days as well.”

“Our numbers in 2016 over 2015 showed significant and strong growth,” Anderson added. “And we’re cautiously optimistic that numbers in 2017 will continue to grow.”