Tourism partners, businesses and community groups help shape the future of Smiths Falls tourism
Smiths Falls is moving into the next phase of its destination planning process as staff work with tourism partners, businesses and community organizations to determine how the community should position itself to visitors, residents and future investors.
Economic Development and Tourism Director Ingrid Bron provided council with an update June 15, outlining a summer-long effort to gather partner feedback, analyze visitor behaviour and build a strategy that will help guide tourism marketing and economic development initiatives into 2027.
The town recently received a draft destination plan and is now collecting feedback from the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Business Association, Heritage House Museum, the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario, Parks Canada, Lanark County and tourism operators.
Bron said the consultations are intended to validate information collected during the first phase of the project, identify gaps and establish priorities.
“We’re finding there is probably more than one identity,” Bron told council, noting that people access information about Smiths Falls for a variety of reasons and are often looking for different experiences.
Running alongside those consultations is a search engine optimization (SEO) initiative designed to better understand how visitors find information about the community online.
Bron said staff are testing different keywords, phrases and promotional messages to track what attracts the most attention and engagement.
“It’s a fairly new process on how data is gathered online and accessed,” she said.
The town is also adapting to changes in how people search for information, including the growing use of artificial intelligence tools that summarize destinations and attractions rather than directing users to traditional websites.
Over the summer, staff will collect data from events, attractions, social media activity and visitor interactions to establish a baseline understanding of tourism activity in Smiths Falls.
Bron said the goal is not j to count visitors but to better understand how local amenities contribute to the community’s appeal.
“Often the value of having an amenity in town is worth as much as actually people going to that amenity,” she said, citing museums, libraries and galleries as examples.
The destination strategy will eventually become one of three pillars supporting broader economic development efforts, alongside resident attraction and investment attraction.
The town is also participating in Lanark County’s business retention and expansion project, which Bron said will provide additional data to help shape future planning decisions.
Council heard that improvements to the municipal website will be part of the next phase of the project. Bron said consultations and research completed this year will help inform future website upgrades, marketing plans and tourism products.
In the meantime, the town continues to promote Smiths Falls through media outreach and influencer marketing campaigns.
Bron said articles featuring Smiths Falls are scheduled to appear in the Ottawa Business Journal and Ottawa Citizen, while social media influencers have been invited to experience and promote local attractions.
Council also received an update on physician recruitment efforts.
Bron said visiting medical students have been introduced to community attractions and activities as part of efforts to showcase Smiths Falls as a place to live and work. Recent participants have been taken to local events and attractions and provided opportunities to explore the community by bicycle and on the water.
Another initiative planned for this summer is a pop-up art gallery and retail space in a vacant downtown storefront formerly occupied by a tattoo studio.
Developed in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Business Association, the project will provide artists with exhibition and retail space while helping animate the downtown core.
Bron said the gallery will also complement the town’s cultural planning work and the annual art walk.
Mayor Shawn Pankow said he was encouraged by the focus on collecting data and measuring results as the destination planning process moves forward.
The consultation, research and testing phase is expected to continue through the summer before staff begin developing recommendations and marketing strategies for 2027.
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