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Monday’s total solar eclipse allowed the Eastern Townships to “shine on the international scene,” according to the regional tourism association, which estimates that tens of thousands of people travelled to the region in recent days.
The director of Tourism Eastern Townships figured that the region drew between “50,000 and 100,000 people easily” on Monday.
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“We will have the official figures on real traffic next Tuesday,” said Lysandre Michaud-Verreault, adding that the “occupancy rate in hotels was 99.9 per cent throughout the Eastern Townships.”
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Michaud-Verreault explained that the tourism board was not taken by surprise and was well prepared to receive the higher-than-usual number of visitors.
Tourism Eastern Townships had collected information, several months in advance, on the flow of tourists total solar eclipses usually generate.
“Two years ago, we set up a regional multi-sectoral committee, with sectors such as public health, public security, the SQ and others, with a view to co-ordinating the flow of visitors,” she said. “We had organized more than 50 sites across the Eastern Townships to receive visitors and be able to spread them out.
“So we knew that we could accommodate between 60,000 and 80,000 people in these sites and that all the other non-designated sites were added to this.”
Media effect
The tourism association said it identified more than 600 articles and mentions on radio or television across the country and abroad that cited “the Eastern Townships as an eclipse destination or an astrotourism destination.”
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“We also had 65,000 visits to the eclipse pages of our websites,” allowing “us to shine on the international scene,” Michaud-Verreault added.
“For tourists, the fact of having experienced such an extraordinary event in the Eastern Townships is sure to leave an impression. It suggests that they will want to come back because of the positive feeling linked to their experience.”
Michaud-Verreault also said she believes many people who have read or heard about the region because of the eclipse “will now consider it as a tourist destination.”
The benefits of media coverage to the region doesn’t the tourism board will be reducing its advertising campaign budgets. On the contrary. “It’s a good time to bring back other messages, about the outdoors or gourmet tourism, for example,” Michaud-Verreault said.
“We want to take advantage of the opportunity to remind people in the United States and Ontario” who have heard of the Eastern Townships in recent days.
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