Sylvan Lake town council has formed a new committee focused on giving local tourism a boost.
The Tourism Development Committee will be an umbrella group overseeing local tourism-related initiatives. It is expected to have a broader scope than a Waterfront Commercial District Committee, which has been disbanded.
Sylvan Lake Mayor Megan Hanson said the waterfront committee’s members were limited to business owners and staff from the downtown core.
“As they got into projects they realized that there were so many that were needed on a bigger community scale but were really still tourism-centred,” she said.
While the lakefront will always be the town’s biggest tourism draw, there are parks and other amenities with a lot of potential to attract visitors, said Hanson.
“The committee thought we could do more work if we could just think bigger than this couple-of-blocks radius.
“It’s just a bit of an evolution of (the waterfront committee) and it would open it up to allow some different representation on the committee.”
Terms of reference are still being developed but the end goal will be to create a committee whose members represent a wide variety of tourism-driven businesses within the town but also the surrounding areas.
A member of council has been appointed to sit on the committee and members of the waterfront committee are also expected to remain involved.
The waterfront committee was formed in 2016 as a subcommittee of the Sylvan Lake Chamber of Commerce. Its goal was to mobilize the downtown business community and pursue initiatives to make the town a year-round destination and it had a number of successes such as the Winter Village and various beautification projects.