The City of Charlottetown’s SCORE sport tourism team led by Events Development Officer, Wayne Long, is currently taking part in Sport Tourism Canada’s Virtual Sport Events Congress (SEC), the largest annual gathering of everyone connected to the $6.8 billion sport tourism industry in Canada. The 3-day interactive and educational event allows destinations to connect with sport organizations seeking host partners, provides superb professional development presentations, connects the brightest minds in the sport tourism industry, and allows everyone to enjoy the SEC brand of fun and social networking.
Charlottetown has seen tremendous ongoing success in hosting numerous sport events as a result of a shared vision to be a premier sport tourism destination, dedicated leadership, and strategic partnerships locally and nationally. Charlottetown has been consistently ranked the #1 sport event host city on the Canadian Sport Hosting Index since 2018 for populations less than 50,000, and since 2019 has been ranked #6 overall in the country, the smallest city by far to break the Top 10 which is dominated by major metropolitan centres.
Like other sectors of the tourism industry, sport tourism has been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The SCORE team has worked tirelessly with much success over the past year to ensure that displaced business is recaptured for the destination so that the associated economic, tourism, and social impacts can be realized in the city in the years ahead. Focus continues on attracting new sport events to Charlottetown in 2022, forward through ongoing bidding efforts.
“The City’s sport tourism team has traditionally spent a lot of time in the marketplace prospecting and bidding on valuable properties,” said Charlottetown Mayor Philip Brown. “The pandemic has required our SCORE team to get creative with how they do business and continue to generate economic activity for Charlottetown. This past summer was a great example of this creativity with the bubble hosting of the Canadian Premier League’s Island Games in Charlottetown, in partnership with Tourism PEI.”
The City of Charlottetown elevated its partnerships with Sport Tourism Canada at this year’s SEC due to COVID-19, partnering with the organization to present wellness and networking activities for attendees, participate in a breakout panel session, and present the pinnacle activity of SEC, Sport Events Exchange.
“Throughout these challenging times, our SCORE team has persevered and continued to identify and secure business for Charlottetown, working as far out as 2025 to capitalize on this lucrative market,” said Councillor Julie McCabe, Chair of the City’s Economic Development, Tourism and Event Management Committee. “A number of good news announcements will come over the next few months, beginning with the recent announcement of the highly sought after Canada Soccer Toyota National Championships: U-15 Cup for Charlottetown in 2022.”
Sport Events Congress wraps up tomorrow with Sport Events Exchange, the most important sport event attraction event on the annual calendar where potential event hosts have the opportunity to pitch their destinations directly to events rights holders.