The Binational Tourism Alliance created the BINATIONAL Peace Garden Trail as a tourism initiative to stimulate cross border tourism from Canada by highlighting War of 1812 locations and to celebrate 200 years of peace and prosperity between Canada and the U.S.
Since being confirmed as one of many Peace Gardens being launched in 2012, we have already received FREE MARKETING through releases sent to thousands of travel writers, numerous international newsletters, and St. Marys is even highlighted in a printed brochure. They had so much interest at a recent Festival that they had to print out information from the stmaryswelcome website as handouts!!!
The front page of that brochure has the War of 1812 logo and reads:
“Building a binational legacy: a permanent trail linking Canadian & U.S. HERITAGE, Architectural, and Garden Sites and Events.
According the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Tourism Division -Canada is the #1 origin market and is #1 for visitor spending for international travelers to Georgia. In 2010, the Canadian Consulate reported over 421,000 Canadians visited Georgia and spent an estimated $99 million while here. It’s forecast that Canada is to account for 31% of the projected international tourism growth through 2016.
I point these things out to bring awareness of this initiative to gain more visits from international travelers. We do see many Canadians and French Canadians, and have even started printing out our St. Marys history in French for those visitors. We would like to encourage anything that can bring us more.
The City Council, the CVB and the DDA have all endorsed the project. The Boy Scouts from Troop 318 have claimed the site as a community service project and the DMA has paid for the purchase of a second flagpole to add the Canadian flag alongside the U.S. Flag. Each of these groups is interested in helping tourism grow and this is an avenue that helps get the word out on St. Marys Georgia.
The dedication will be held on July 4th at 1pm and all are welcome to attend.
Sincerely,
Angela Wigger, CMP -Director of Tourism
St. Marys Convention & Visitors Bureau
912.882.4000
Angela.wigger@stmaryswelcome.com
111 Osborne Street, St. Marys, GA 31558
www.stmaryswelcome.com
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