M.D. OF BONNYVILLE – What if Kinosoo Ridge became more than the Lakeland’s local ski hill?

That’s one of the opportunities Travel Lakeland is exploring as it builds a 20-year plan to turn more of northeastern Alberta’s natural, cultural, and recreational assets into reasons for people to visit, stay longer, and spend money in the region.

Travel Lakeland President Michelle Wright presented the organization’s long-term Destination Development Plan to M.D. of Bonnyville council on August 11, outlining a $366,000 project focused not simply on marketing the Lakeland, but attracting tourism investment and developing experiences that can grow the regional economy.

“We are an area that has a great number of assets and we are looking to develop those assets further in our economic development and investment attraction project,” Wright told council.

A 20-year look at what’s possible

Travel Lakeland has received $183,000 through provincial NRED funding and matched that with another $183,000, creating the $366,000 project that will unfold over roughly two-and-a-half years.

The end result will be a 20-year Destination Development Plan.

“This is an investment attraction and economic development plan,” Wright explained. “So while we have beautiful things in beautiful places, this is about getting more investment into our communities in the tourism industry.”

Travel Lakeland’s broader vision includes outdoor recreation, soft adventure, cultural experiences and culinary tourism, with everything from lakes and wilderness to Métis, Ukrainian, French and Indigenous culture, agriculture and locally produced food and beverages potentially playing a role.

The organization has also spent the past two years building an inventory of more than 1,800 tourism assets across the Lakeland to better understand what already exists and where the gaps and opportunities are.

Could Kinosoo Ridge become a signature Lakeland attraction?

For the M.D. of Bonnyville, one opportunity is particularly close to home.

“In particular for this area, we are looking very closely at Kinosoo Ridge and the opportunity to grow that into a signature attraction through a Lakeland tourism company,” Wright said.

Travel Lakeland has already had initial discussions around Kinosoo Ridge and the potential for an all-season resort designation.

That doesn’t mean a decision has been made to turn the M.D.-owned resort into an all-season destination. At this point, Travel Lakeland is exploring the opportunity as part of the larger strategy.

The concept would also involve a different business structure.

Wright explained that a proposed Lakeland Tourism Company would be a for-profit organization owned by shareholders, separate from Travel Lakeland’s destination marketing organization, which would remain a non-profit focused on marketing and accessing grant funding.

“We have had some initial conversations with Kinosoo about what’s available out there and the potential for that all-season resort designation to add that as a signature attraction to the strategy,” Wright said.

More than marketing the Lakeland

Travel Lakeland’s pitch is also about changing the way tourism is viewed locally.

Wright told council the organization will continue marketing the region, but its role is expanding into investment attraction and economic development.

The strategy is being built around several provincial tourism priorities, including increasing tourism revenue, Indigenous tourism, all-season resorts and air access.

Travel Lakeland’s presentation notes Alberta is targeting major growth in visitor spending by 2035, with tourism already supporting more than 85,000 jobs provincially.

Wright was also careful not to oversell what tourism can realistically become in northeastern Alberta.

“We get that tourism is number four in the top industries in Alberta, but we’re a long way down from energy, healthcare and agriculture,” she said.

Still, she expects tourism to play a larger economic role in the coming years.

Travel Lakeland will be back with a funding request

There was no funding decision for council to make Tuesday.

Travel Lakeland currently charges municipal partners 30 cents per capita for membership and Wright said the organization is not proposing an increase to that base membership rate.

Instead, it plans to return with a formal request for a temporary 70-cent-per-capita special assessment in both 2027 and 2028.

“That will bridge us between the time that we are implementing the start of the strategy and when the strategy actually starts to generate revenue for the organization,” Wright explained.

The money would also help Travel Lakeland provide matching funds for a provincial CIP Collaboration Grant application planned for October.

Wright said the organization considered permanently increasing municipal membership to $1 per capita but decided against it.

“We don’t anticipate we will need the dollars from our partners,” she said of the longer term. “So we chose to go the route of a special assessment instead, just to bridge us.”

Growth will need roads and infrastructure to match

The conversation also turned to something familiar to anyone regularly travelling into the Lakeland: Highway 28.

Deputy Reeve Ben Fadeyiw questioned how the region can successfully grow tourism while visitors are travelling on a highway he described as being in terrible condition.

“We all love to see tourism here and people come travelling down our highways, and our highways are our biggest deterrent to coming up here,” Fadeyiw said.

He told council he had seen three breakdowns along Highway 28 on a recent trip to Edmonton, including vehicles pulling trailers and campers.

“When these people go back home, they’ll have nothing but terrible things to say about coming up here,” he said. “It’s sad for our tourism industry.”

Wright agreed the tourism plan cannot be separated from the infrastructure needed to get visitors here.

“We recognize this tourism strategy will not be successful if the infrastructure is not in place to support it,” she said, adding Travel Lakeland has raised the condition of Highway 28 with MLAs across the region.

For now, council accepted Travel Lakeland’s presentation as information.

Wright said the organization expects to return with its final strategy in the coming months, along with a formal request outlining what it will be asking of its municipal partners as the 20-year tourism plan moves from ideas on paper toward implementation