This is the second year the CFC has participated in this event.
This is the second year the CFC has participated in this event.
I provided the following report to the executive shortly after returning from Ottawa. I also posted this on the CFC news forum.
Hal Bond and I just got back from the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance Congress in Ottawa. We met with representatives of thirty communities as part of the speed dating portion of the program where we met for eight minutes with interested communities. We also renewed acquaintance with representatives of some of the communities we met last year. We were the only federation that was granted two tables at the speed dating event which doubled our appointments. Last year there were eighteen appointments and we had a total of twenty five with one of our tables only being used half the time. This time we were fully subscribed on both tables. Aris Marghetis was also there for the speed dating portion of the program and he switched from table to table occasionally in mid-meeting with a view to setting up a possible chess tour across Canada.
There were thirty five or so communities that wanted to meet with us. We met with thirty of them in speed dating:
Tourism Barrie
Ville de Hearst (développement économique) which is in Northern Ontario
City of Brampton
Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island
Tourism Kelowna
Tourism Sault Ste. Marie
City of Penticton
City of Leduc (near Edmonton and where Edmonton's airport is located)
Bay of Quinte Regional Marketing Board which I believe includes Belleville
Richmond Sport Hosting
Central Counties Tourism which is Metro Toronto and north including Markham
Lethbridge Destination Management Organization
Medicine Hat Sport and Event Council
Tourism Brantford
Tourism Kingston
Tourism Hamilton - City of Hamilton
City of Orillia
Tourism Vancouver
Niagara Falls Business Events
Tourism Prince George
Brandon First
Tourism Calgary
Visit Moose Jaw
Sport Durham
Fort McMurray Tourism
Ottawa Tourism
Québec City Business Destination
City of Thunder Bay
Discover Halifax
City of Vernon
In addition, we talked to tourism people in Laval, QC and Nanaimo, BC who are still interested from last year. We talked to a number of hotels, resorts and hotel chains as well as representatives of universities and colleges all eager to bring tournaments to their venues or communities. It was almost too much to process everything.
We met an entrepreneur with an interesting twist on AirBNB which could lower costs of attending chess tournaments and Hal met with a professor who has studied sports tourism and who has a son who plays chess in the Guelph area.
This was a somewhat pricey undertaking since we did not have the subsidies that were provided last year but I suspect that if we can properly follow up on all the leads the payback for the chess community will be unprecedented. We got a number of interesting leads which hopefully we can match up with chess organizers in each of the local communities.2021 is in Ottawa. 2020 is in Edmonton. Aris Marghetis also attended the speed dating meetings.
We drove up with me picking Hal up in Guelph which helped reduce costs somewhat but there was a lot to unpack when it comes to parsing all the opportunities that we have been presented with. This is probably something that we should continue to do as it has the potential to really spread chess into areas of the country which it doesn't yet have a foothold. I also met representatives from the Canadian government who could be helpful in the future if we were ever to bid on international events. There were no really marginal appointments this year.
I count 16 communities/organizations that are new to us this year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec
Fred
The issue for most of these communities is that you have to start with a smaller event which does not necessarily require a Canadian Open or CYCC type of event or necessarily a bid to the CFC. A Chessfest is probably a better fit for most of these communities. The contacts from last year were quite good but our ability to absorb all the opportunities is the real bottleneck. We don't have as many organizers as we would like to have and the ones that we do have are already somewhat stretched.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred McKim
And what I should have said was "new from last year's event". You're right Vlad, any community can plan a "Chess Festival" with the size proportionate to their resource and organizing capabilities. Ones that succeed can move on to regional and National events over time.
There is no doubt that there is unprecedented interest in hosting chess events. I think we need to put that idea in front of local tourism bureaus. The trick will then be for the local organizers to negotiate and leverage that into some meaningful sponsorship. There is money on the table and you do need to know how to access and ask for that money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred McKim