Photo: The city’s Katlin Pegg discussed the Border City’s attributes with the steady stream of Sask. Pavilion visitors.
By Katie Ryan
Lloydminster put its best foot forward at the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.
Ward Read, community development officer and Katlin Pegg, tourism/community development coordinator, set up shop in the Sask. Pavilion during the final two days of the Games to showcase Canada’s only border city. Representing the Border City, Read and Pegg promoted the community as place to live, work, invest and visit.
“The bulk of the interaction was more of a visitation and tourism type piece for travellers, creating general awareness so people know who we are, where we are and what we do,” said Read, adding that while most visitors were local Vancouverites or British Columbians, he met several international visitors as well.
“A lot of them did not know about Lloydminster in any way shape or form, so the biggest piece of the puzzle we did was general awareness. With a smaller handful of people I was able to have a few really good conversations around some more economic type aspects. One family was potentially looking at relocating to Saskatchewan and Lloydminster was one site to consider.”
According to Read, the Saskatchewan was second to Ontario in pavilion attendance, seeing an estimated 7,500 people a day pass through its pavilion doors.
“The organizers did a really good job in building the pavilion experience to both provide an opportunity for us to get some information out and for people to be able to experience some of the things of Saskatchewan, such as our parties, our food, our beer. It was a constant draw,” said Read.
Lloydminster teamed up with the city of North Battleford and manned a joint kiosk, with support from the North West Enterprise Region.
A promotional video highlighting all that Lloydminster has to offer was regularly screened in the pavilion in tandem with North Battleford, even on the larger screens in the main gathering area before and after the men’s gold medal hockey game on Sunday.
“It was the massive screen in the main hall, which had a capacity of 400 people,” said Read, adding at one point the video cheered for its footage of the city’s January torch relay celebration.
Read and Pegg handed out information and USB memory sticks to visitors preloaded with links to Lloydminster’s website and other information. Read can now gauge the impact they had at the pavilion, monitoring the web traffic the city’s website generates.
“Right now when I check our web statistics, our largest visiting contingent is from not too far away – Edmonton and Saskatoon,” he said. “But, we are actually able to check by country and city location, so I am hoping to attract a number from British Columbia, Vancouver in particular and see some increased activity.”
While the USB sticks were well received, Read was surprised to find out what was really in high demand at the pavilion – pins. Visitors were keen on collecting pins from different cities and provinces, and according to Read he packed a several thousand too few.
“That was the one thing that I was absolutely surprised by and completely unprepared for. I had never experienced this pin collecting thing at any other event or venue I have been at. It was crazy, everybody wanting pins. They wanted to take the pins off our clothes,” he laughed.