The community is being asked to take a survey online. This survey will help the Town with developing a branding, development and marketing action plan.
This survey can be found online at http://www.sylvanlake.ca/public-notices.html.
The survey will ask questions on where you live, where you take your friends and family when they are in town, where you go in your leisure time and what are the top three most significant challenges currently in the community.
This is the early stages of developing a plan to make a name for Sylvan Lake and see what areas can be further developed that will attract visitors.
“The survey that’s available now is sort of a first step to get the public involved to share some feedback,” said communications officer for the Town of Sylvan LakeJoanne Gaudet. “We will probably have the survey itself available for a few weeks yet.”
At this point information is being sought out as to what individual’s top choices of doing when they have people visiting in town.
“By identifying those activities, hang outs or places that you go to on weekends or where you take your visitors, that’s identifying some of the opportunities that we have to develop around,” Gaudet said.
She said if everyone starts naming one particular activity or identifies one source of pride then that gives us a good lead on what to work on.
“If everyone says ‘well we always go to Lakeshore Drive and take a walk along the beach’ then that’s an aspect we need to consider when we start developing this brand,” Gaudet said. “It’s doing a quick swat of the community of the perceptive out there and applying them to our plans moving forward.”
She said the economic department has initiated a branding project for the purpose of re-branding the community and for economic diversification.
This was something that was identified as a mid-range initiative in the tourism and investment attraction strategy and was adopted in council in 2014 Gaudet said.
As for what the Town of Sylvan Lake is known for, some would say it is the town of all seasons. But Gaudet said there really isn’t a brand for the town yet.
“We’re looking to reinvent that and we’re taking the initial steps,” she said.
She explains how the survey is somewhat of a swat process to get feedback from the residents.
Gaudet said the benefits of branding and marketing are to enhance the economic development efforts that are put into the Town and to get Sylvan Lake on the map regional and nationally.
“It gives us a sense of increased local identity which is always good for well being and community pride,” Gaudet said. “It does attract new businesses, industries,investments and high profile events as well. It draws in new populations.”
reporter@sylvanlakenews.com