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Only Two Weeks To Go Until the Conference
Sessions are filling up fast! If you haven't yet registered for the OSW Tourism Conference taking place March 20th & 21st at The Best Western Plus Leamington Hotel & Conference Centre we encourage you to sign up now. This annual conference really is one of the best opportunities you will have to meet with your peers, learn a few new things and discuss how to strengthen our tourism industry this year. Click here to register.
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Get Creative at Street Alive Session
Streets Alive is an innovative and interactive public art and place making program. It showcases unique and vibrant streetscapes to draw in locals, cottagers and tourists - stimulating the local economy and instilling enormous civic pride. Leslie Fournier of Street Alive Production, will share how businesses, stakeholders and citizens can come together to differentiate their town and attract new visitors. Participants in this session at the conference, will learn real world examples and take-aways that can be used in communities of any size and at any budget. Click
here to register for this session and others.
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TWEPI Takes the Cake for RevPAR in 2017
Congratulations to the team at Windsor Essex Pelee Island Tourism and all of their hoteliers for landing at the top of the heap in the region for Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) for the 2017 calendar year. * Based on CRBE and STR reports.
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New Project Coordinator - Ana Baxter
We are very pleased to introduce our new Contract Project Coordinator Ana Baxter. Ana brings a wealth of tourism knowledge from her work with Banff Lake Louise Tourism, Marriott Hotels and Walt Disney World just to name a few. Ana has already hit the ground running helping to wrap up this fiscal’s partnership allocation. She will also be assisting with research and a number of other projects moving forward. We are thrilled to have Ana working with us. You can reach Ana at project@swotc.ca.
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Boost Your Email Database with Us
Take advantage of the Ontario’s Southwest Facebook qualified audience of 38,000+ and boost your email database with a co-op social media contests. OSW will host the contest on our Facebook page, do all the programing, promote it on our social channels and you provide the prize. Click here to find out more.
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Working with Travel Bloggers:
Last month SWOTC partnered with Tourism Sarnia Lambton and Visit Middlesex to bring travel and lifestyle blogger Angelie Sood of The Lifestyle File to the region. See links below to the blogs that resulted from this trip:
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2018 Top 100 Festivals & Events Ontario Announced
Festivals and Events Ontario (FEO) has announced the 2018 Top 100 Festivals & Events in Ontario. The 2018 Top 100 Awards were given out on Friday, March 2nd during FEO’s Annual Conference “Create the Experience” in Hamilton, Ontario.
Congratulations to the 2018 Top 100 Ontario Festivals & Events from Ontario’s Southwest including:
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Carrousel of Nations: June 15-24, 2018
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Eat & Drink Norfolk: April 5-7, 2018
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International Plowing Match & Rural Expo: Sept. 18 - 22, 2018
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LaSalle Craft Beer Festival: Oct. 5-6, 2018
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Norfolk County Fair & Horse Show: Oct. 2-8, 2018
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TD Sunfest: Canada's Premier Celebration of World Cultures: July 5-8, 2018
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Tecumseh Corn Festival: Aug. 24-26, 2018
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Western Fair: Sept 9 - 16, 2018
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London Wine and Food Show: Jan 17 - 19, 2019
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Changes Coming to Special Occasion Permit Applications
As of April 1, 2018, two changes will take effect with regards to applications for Special Occasion Permits.
1. All applications for SOPs must be made online
All SOP applications will have to be made online through the iAGCO portal, available at iAGCO. As of that date, the LCBO will no longer accept or process applications for SOPs. SOP applications made through the online portal are processed more quickly and can often be received on the same day.
2. New fees for SOPs
The fee changes for “No Sale” SOPs, will be gradually introduced over a two-year period, as further detailed below. These will be the first changes to SOP fees in over 15 years and are necessary to recover a portion of AGCO regulatory costs associated with the administration of SOPs.
The fee for “No Sale” SOPs is currently set at $25 per day. The fee will be adjusted as follows:
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$35 per day, from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019;
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$45 per day, from April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020;
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$50 per day, from April 1, 2020 onwards.
“Sale” SOPs are currently set at $75 and valid for up to three consecutive days. As of April 1, 2018, the fee for “Sale” permits will increase to $150 per each day of the event.
Click here to learn more about both of these changes.
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International Women's Day Is March 8, 2018
International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
Now, more than ever, there's a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity. A strong call to #PressforProgress. A strong call to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive. Click here to learn more.
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