Tourism Awareness Week is May 29 to June 4. During this week, we recognize the impact and benefits of tourism across the Kingston community.
“Tourism is a key economic sector in Kingston,” says Mayor Bryan Paterson. “It employs almost nine per cent of our local workforce and supports many small businesses and cultural organizations in our city, from inns and restaurants to galleries and museums. Tourism is also a critical sector in our community’s pandemic recovery, as sport tournaments, group tours, and in-person events return to the city.”
When you think about tourism, what may come to immediately to mind are families visiting their relatives or individuals exploring the historic sites of a new city. These visitors are part of the leisure tourism sector. But tourism includes a number of vital non-leisure activities as well. These include:
Travel trade
Tour operators bring motor coach, cruise, and other group tours to Kingston. These groups will either explore the city together before moving on to their next destination, or will come to Kingston for a specific purpose, such as a school field trip to Fort Henry.
Business events
From small corporate team meetings to large trade shows and conferences, business events bring groups together for work, often from different communities. Business events fill blocks of hotel rooms and provide opportunities for delegates to explore local restaurants, shops, and attractions in their off-hours. While Zoom has been the meeting venue of choice for the last two years of the pandemic, business and academic conference organizers are increasingly looking to get back to in-person or hybrid (in-person and virtual) meetings for greater productivity.
Sport and wellness events
Sport tournaments and events also bring large groups of people – athletes, coaches, family members, and fans – to the city, often for several days. Like business events, sport events support local accommodations and businesses. They also provide spectator activities for local residents. And while Kingston’s facilities and natural attractions lend themselves to traditional sporting events like hockey tournaments and sailing races, the city has also played host to events like the 2022 Canadian Scrabble Classic. The four-day Scrabble tournament in March brought 75 top wordsmiths from across North America to Kingston to compete for a $10,000 prize.
Film tourism
Film and television productions bring large groups of cast and crew for overnight – and often multi-week – stays. Kingston has, in recent years, become a popular location for productions, as it offers unique locations like Kingston Penitentiary, which can be used as a closed set. The penitentiary has been used as a location for Star Trek: Discovery and The Mayor of Kingstown, among other productions. In addition to supporting local accommodations, film tourism boosts the local economy through the use of local skilled labour, like carpenters and electricians; rental services (including location, equipment, and bus rentals); and training and employment of local workers.
Visitor Services
Kingston’s Visitor Information Centre provides year-round information on what to see and do in Kingston to both visitors and residents of the city. The centre also hosts local artists and musicians and offers a variety of goods for sale.
While weekend getaways to a new town can often be a spur-of-the-moment decision, non-leisure tourism planning has a long lead time. Conferences and sport tournaments can confirm upcoming major events two to four years in advance. The stability provided by confirmed business events coming to Kingston allows hotels to set aside blocks of rooms well ahead of time and ensure that they are adequately staffed. In addition to hotel rooms, travel trade groups secure restaurant bookings, site tours, and attraction tickets in advance of their visits. Film productions line up locations, equipment rentals and local services, such as catering and security, before they ever come to town for their work. All of these actions provide stability for the local labour market. Almost 15,000 people in Kingston are directly employed in tourism, and there are 7,000 tourism businesses in the region. But even those not directly employed in the sector experience the benefits of the tourism economy.
“Combined, the leisure and business tourism sectors generate $533 million annually to the local economy, through direct spending, employment, and investment in Kingston,” says Megan Knott, Executive Director of Tourism Kingston. “Tourism will also be pivotal in our pandemic recovery as a community. While people are more inclined to travel for business or pleasure than they were a year or two ago, Kingston is still primarily a summer destination for leisure travellers. Business, sport, and film tourism can bring groups, tours, tournaments, and productions to Kingston year-round. This is tremendously important for local businesses and cultural organizations, enabling them to keep their doors open and offer stable employment for staff throughout the year.”
About Tourism Kingston
Tourism Kingston is the destination marketing organization for the City of Kingston. Tourism Kingston’s marketing of the city as a visitor destination is funded by the Municipal Accommodation Tax, a 4% tax on hotel stays of fewer than 30 days.
