Former Stratton man helping market region abroad

Ken Johnston
Editor

Tourism promotion on a much larger scale is what the Northern Tourism Marketing Company (NTMC) is doing for Northern Ontario.
Until very recently the different regions of Northern Ontario had their own promoters and rarely thought of promoting tourism in another part of the province. However a not for profit group has been established to compliment those organizations. NTMC was formed about three years ago and is in its second marketing cycle.
Stratton native John Cameron is the media relations coordinator for NTMC and was in the Rainy River District last Wednesday. He was busy gathering vital information on this area and was surprised to learn of a number of great tourist attractions, such as the buffalo farms in the area as well as the awesome bird watching opportunities.
Cameron said that often people live in an area and take for granted that everyone knows of such treasures mentioned above. His group takes all those opportunities and puts them into several promotional packages that include summer and winter outdoor adventures publications, hunting and fishing publications as well as a region wide passport travel planner.
Cameron said that neighbours all around Northern Ontario have made concerted efforts to promote tourism in their states or provinces. NTMC is doing that for Northern Ontario with the view that the generic Ontario promotions do not do much to promote the unique tourist potential of this region.
At first groups like Ontario Sunset Country and other tourism associations like it were apprehensive about what NTMC’s role was. However Cameron said that all groups now see the benefits of working together to attract people to the region.
Cameron who graduated from Rainy River High School in 1974 with people like Doug Hartnell and Lori (nee Wood) Kuzyk, studied broadcasting at Confederation College. He did some work for the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal and then went to Saskatchewan to do some broadcasting. He then returned to radio in Thunder Bay and for seven years was the Sportscaster at Thunder Bay Television.
After that he left the industry to run a clothing business for a couple of years. Then he returned to school and studied e-commerce and graduated with the Dean’s Medal. Afterwards he taught at Con College and worked with the Northwest Enterprise Centre.
All the while he continued to return back to this area to visit his mother who still lives in Stratton.
Now into marketing at NTMC, he is finding all his background and his roots here to be a huge asset in putting together a great promotion of the region.
Pumping the slogan, “Northern Ontario, so beautiful it is hard to share,” Cameron has been busy travelling from Rainy River to Timmins and up to Hudson’s Bay gathering information for the marketing campaign.
He encourages the public to keep their eyes open for television commercials on the Weather Channel.
They are also promoting the region at trade shows all over the U.S. and in Manitoba.
In the next few weeks they will be releasing a partnership book for businesses to use to get involved with NTMC’s marketing campaign. In the weeks to follow they plan to hold town hall meetings across Northern Ontario to discuss their marketing plans and opportunities for tourist related businesses and tourist attractions.
Anyone interested in learning more about NTMC can visit their web site at: www.GetNorth.com or call John at 1-800-947-8066.