Submitted by The Men’s Breakfast
Doris Jaehrling, Tobermory Chamber of Commerce (TCC) Coordinator, provided the December breakfast gathering with a summary of activities and future planning of the chamber. Doris works from the Chamber office located at the south end of the Tobermory Community Center and is a well-recognized figure in the community.
The TCC represents commercial and tourism interests in the Northern Bruce Peninsula and has been in operation since 1977. It is in the process of re-naming itself to better reflect representation of the entire North Bruce. In addition to the office and information center located in Tobermory, the chamber also operates the information center located on the highway at the north end of Ferndale as well as the temporary booth in Little Tub Harbour during the summer. Their primary focus is to support and enhance business development and undertake strategic business development programs. The chamber is organized under a Board consisting of 11 directors with representation from the municipality and Parks Canada, and is partly funded by the Municipal Accommodation Tax.
It is a non-profit organization advocating and supporting local business, serving as a resource center for both businesses and visitors, organizes special events (including fireworks programs), and undertakes strategic tourism development. One of the chamber’s newer activities is organizing logistics associated with the cruise ship arrivals to Tobermory. These have been increasing in number and involve 120 to 140 passengers on each voyage visiting town from ships originating in the U.S. and Germany. Larger Viking Great Lakes Cruise ships with over 480 passengers will be arriving in 2024.
The Chamber is currently working with the municipality, the county, Parks Canada, and others on sustainable tourism initiatives through the Sustainable Tourism Action Group (STAG). TCC also organized a local “Tobermory Marketplace” for ‘micro businesses’ during 2023. This was held at the ballpark and will be continued in 2024. Watch their website (www.tobermory.com), which is currently being updated.
Tourism Numbers
Tourist visitorship to the Chamber’s office has been recorded since 2015. The overall numbers are little changed over the 10 years: 24,432 in 2015 and 23,811 in 2023, however, as expected, the numbers decreased significantly over the pandemic with only 12,555 in 2020. During 2022 over half of the visitors were from Ontario, most (39%) from Toronto. Eighteen percent were from Québec with 6% from each of the U.S. and other international locations.
The December breakfast gave our food handlers and clean-up crew an opportunity to take the CC’s new kitchen ‘for a spin’. Reviews were mixed but the food turned out great thanks to Lawrence.
The next Men’s Breakfast will be held on January 13th with the speaker to be confirmed.
We will be very slightly raising the cost of the breakfast at the next meeting to $15.00 to reflect increasing food prices and to allow us to continue to donate funds to local charities/organizations. In this regard we recently provided a $500.00 donation to the ‘Movember’ men’s health movement, although not specifically local, we do have local men! We also provided $1,000.00 to the redevelopment fund for the Golden Dawn Senior Citizen Home which serves all of North Bruce. Also, $500 was given to the Tobermory Legion, for their excellent help in meal preparation and clean up for our annual Ladies Breakfast.
If you are planning to attend in January, it would be helpful if you could let us know, by contacting Martin at hogarth@auracom.com
