To the Expositor:
The downtown merchants of Little Current are many people’s first contact with what is both the North Channel’s busiest port town and also a regional focus for tourism.
As such, the downtown businesspeople, as represented by the Little Current Business Improvement Area (BIA), are supportive of all events and festivals, not only in Little Current, but also in the larger Manitoulin area as they attract tourists to our community and to our businesses.
Service clubs and not-for-profit organizations improve our community, and we continue to support them with donations from the many requests we receive.
All local festivals attract people to our community. Probably none is without its flaws, but from a tourism perspective, our position generally is, ‘the more, the better.’
Our town councils of the past few years, together with funding agencies like FedNor and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, have recognized that Little Current is a natural location for tourism, both land and water based, to expand. That was certainly recognized by the massive funded infrastructure improvements to our front street docks and the fact that the Great Spirit Circle Trail organization chose Little Current as a location for its exciting new hotel project.
Tourism is an important growth industry. It creates jobs and allows local retail and service businesses some comfort in knowing that, after the extremely lean late fall, winter and early spring months, they will be able to do some additional business in the late spring, summer and early fall.
That is our business cycle and our local events and festivals are an important part of it.
Yours truly,
Little Current BIA
