The Town of Blackfalds, City of Lacombe and Lacombe County have been actively involved in becoming more visitor friendly.  

From May to September a visitor friendly assessment was conducted and looked at areas like overall ambiance, signage, quality of service, visitor information and pedestrian friendliness.  

Blackfalds has become the first to adopt the report which highlighted some of their strengths as their sport facilities and Abbey Centre, while critiquing them on a lack of signage.  

Mayor Melodie Stol said by making the town more visitor friendly it will attract new businesses.

“We’re really getting a lot of engagement from business owners and from investors in the community. Now we have a new approach to economic development and tourism internally, we have a full time economic development officer for the last year and now we have a visitor friendly assessment. We’re really now seeing those projects coming out of that department.”

Stol adds the town does have new wayfinding signage and are waiting for the cold snap to pass before it can be installed.

Assessments were also done for the City of Lacombe and Lacombe County, which they will be looking at down the road.