With tourism season upon us, Huron County’s Economic Development team is gearing up for a busy season.
They’re using tourism numbers from last year to help them be prepared for this year.
Economic Development Officer Rick Sickinger shared tourism data from previous years with county council on Wednesday.
Back in 2022, Huron County was host to around 1.2 million visitors, which had a direct economic impact of an estimated $116-118 million.
He shared that tourism numbers actually increased during the pandemic years, and that more current tourism numbers are higher than pre-pandemic numbers.
Sickinger says that the economic development team is also looking to expand different events to draw more visitors, particularly with the county’s taste guide and winery and brewery travel guide; they’re hoping to do more food-related tours later in the season.
“The reality is that marrying tourism and agriculture really struck home during this project,” he explained. However, when looking at the tourism shoulder season and hoping to do something later in the year, September is the busiest time of year for growers because of the efforts being directed toward harvesting crops and many producers said they’re too busy to also do tourism-related tours and events.
Sickinger shared that around 55% of last year’s visitors were people making day trips to the region, while 44% stayed overnight on weekend trips. It was also determined that the daytrippers also tended to come back multiple times during the season, while overnight guests only visited once for a weekend or week-long trip.
Breaking down where people were visiting from, 45% were from Southwestern Ontario, and 41% were from the Greater Toronto Area.
Sickinger said that that was no surprise, since traffic on the county’s tourism website, OntariosWestCoast.ca, the breakdown was similar.
Sixty-seven percent of visitors to the tourism website were from Canada, with 94% of Canadian visitors from Ontario – the GTA, Goderich, Kitchener, and London.
It was also shared that 30% of visitors to the website were American. The top 3 states that generated traffic were Illinois, Washington, and Virginia.
On social media, Sickinger said, “We have about 13,000 followers on Facebook, and just under 4,000 on Instagram. In 2024, we posted almost daily – I want to say around 310-315 posts in 2024 on both platforms. Ninety percent of our social media followers are from Canada, and [they come from] London, Goderich, Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, speaking to that GTHA area is important to us now in terms of our visitor reach.”
He also shared that the economic development team also publishes the county’s Trail Guide, and while it is produced and printed on a 3-year cycle, residents and visitors alike really enjoyed the guide, and ended up going through three years’ worth in just 2024.
