YORKTON - There are times you might hear someone in the city suggest there is nothing to do in Yorkton.
While there might not be something which is of interest to a particular person, rare is the week that goes by without some activity – sport tournament, concert, craft event, club activities and more – going on. It is often just a case of getting up off the chesterfield and out the door to take in what is being offered.
There is almost always something to try and you never know you might just become a fan of something new.
Certainly many of the activities happening locally are for more than local residents. Many of the events and activities are also a tourist draw, and that is important in terms of Yorkton’s economy.
We might not think about it often, but a minor hockey tournament which attracts five, six or eight teams, means families in the city, staying in hotel rooms, eating at restaurants, shopping between games at the rink. That is a microcosm of what tourists generated economic activity is.
If you travel to Yorkton to take in a dance festival, a concert, the summer fair, a round of golf, you are a tourist.
And rare will be the visit where someone attends an event from outside the city and doesn’t spend additional dollars in Yorkton for something.
And the dollars add up.
“Travel and tourism generated an estimated $42.2 million in travel receipts in the Yorkton constituency,” detailed a Tourism Yorkton report circulated at the last meeting of Yorkton Council.
That is obviously why support for tourism is as strong as it is.
“Tourism Yorkton has the second-largest membership (after Saskatoon), of a destination marketing organization in Saskatchewan,” stated the report.
The local impact of tourism is reflected provincially too.
Again from the report, “out of the 71,800 people employed within Saskatchewan, there were 1,718 people employed in the tourism-related industries in Yorkton.”
And “travel and tourism generate an estimated $2.24 billion in travel receipts annually in Saskatchewan.”
That is all very positive for the city and province both in terms of dollars flowing though the community, and for residents having a variety of activities they can participate in and enjoy.
