Feature Article April 29, 2004
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Terry Shea brings 32 years marketing experience to Tourist Association
After
a month on the job as General Manager, Terry Shea is enthusiastic
about the prospects for the Land O Lakes Tourist Association.
I see the Land O Lakes Tourist Association as a resource for every member business, fulfilling a marketing function and providing materials and information to help members market their own businesses, he said last week from the LOLTA office in Kaladar.
Terry Shea points out that he has some large shoes to fill in replacing Chris Leger, who had been instrumental in securing a provincial government grant which matches up to $400,000 in cash and in kind donations to members of the Association up until the end of this year, and who was involved in bringing about a large increase in the membership of LOLTA.
The associations staffing has been revamped, leaving two full-time staff positions where there were previously three. Shea said the board felt there was some overlap in the way the two senior jobs were structured, and the new scheme had been set up in the interest of a more linear execution of programs. While the opportunity is there for the hiring of a third person, for now we have been operating with two people.
Terry Shea has spent 32 years as a marketing executive in Kingston, 25 with CKWS TV and Country 960 radio, and the past seven for Kingston Life Magazine. While he remains a resident of Kingston, Terry Shea has had a cottage on Chippego Lake for years, and his parents have also had a cottage on the lake for many years. He is married and has three teenage daughters, and is a school trustee in the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board.
Shea said that the Land O Lakes Tourist Association is primarily a marketing organization, and it has developed strong partnerships to bring a higher profile for the region at trade shows and large tourist information centres. He also said the OSTAR grant that has given the organization the ability to produce high end glossy materials and expand operations generally, is running out, and finding replacement monies will be a major challenge.
We really hope that OSTAR, or some sort of granting program will be available to us. And there is some hope. The most significant thing the provincial government has said is they will entertain requests for an extension of the program beyond the end of this year.
Terry Shea will be the public face of LOLTA, and it will fall to him to maintain the partnerships LOLTA has forged with other tourist related groups and local municipalities.
To that end, he appeared this week at a meeting of North Frontenac Council, who have recently been questioning whether to renew a $4,000 commitment to the organization when they set their 2004 budget. Shea did not apologise for the work LOLTA has done, in spite of complaints about the low profile of the Ompah-Plevna area in the 2004 LOLTA Visitors Guide. Terry Shea pointed out that more lakes from North Frontenac are listed as fishing destinations in the guide than any other municipality, and also said, The guide is only two years old, and it is still developing. Could there be more in it about North Frontenac in future years? Yes.
The Land O Lakes Tourist Association has materials from its members in major tourist information centres in the surrounding region, including at the Ontario East Tourist Information booth at Trenton and at Confederation Basin in Kingston. LOLTA also maintains its own information booths in Amherstview and Sharbot Lake. Terry Shea said LOLTA would be renovating the old, outdated booth at the junction of Hwys. 7 & 38 this spring.
