Last week, Lacombe Regional Tourism approached Lacombe City Council to request a change of funding in order to expand its reach to neighbouring municipalities. Additionally, the organization is hoping to purchase a mobile van to better suit the tourism needs of the area. 

“Because we are a regional tourism association being in this building ties us to having to staff our man-hours in this facility. We actually represent the town of Bentley, Alix, and Clive. We would really love to have the opportunity to say go out and park our mobile van in Bentley for the day to be apart of the community out there maybe even host something fun while we’re there for the day or be apart of an existing event. It allows us to spread ourselves around instead of just being in town,” said Angel Hand, Executive Director of Lacombe Regional Tourism. 

Another reason why Lacombe Regional Tourism wants to go mobile is to be able to cross-promote the Lacombe County area with municipalities outside of Central Alberta. 

“As an example, we could go down to Okotoks let’s say on their market day, and park it at the market. Then, be able to talk about Lacombe, share visitor guides, and all the great reasons to come and visit our area,” explained Hand. 

Hand believes the mobile van could be a great opportunity to introduce people to the area of Lacombe County who may not be aware of the area. Most often the people who come to the Lacombe Regional Tourism office know the area and the things they’d like to do and see. 

Lacombe Regional Tourism is also considering relocating to an office space without frontline service to have the flexibility to be out in the community more often for festivals and special events. 

Event planning during a pandemic

As for the here and the now, obviously, the organization has had to make changes for the usual events scheduled for the summer and fall because of the pandemic. However, Hand says Lacombe Regional Tourism is trying its best to accommodate government recommendations while maintaining some fun activities for the residents of the area. 

“Right now, we are working on what we can put together for Canada Day. It’s not going to be our traditional celebrations because those mass gatherings aren’t allowed until stage three. We’re trying to be creative and we got some neat ideas which we hope to get out in the next week,” said Hand. 

Hand also mentioned that the future of this year’s Culture and Heritage Festival usually held in the fall is still up in the air. 

“We are still sitting and waiting to hear if there are going to be (grant) applications. They typically have the application out for it already and it hasn’t even been released,” added Hand. 

Recently to get people out of their homes and enjoying nice spring weather, Lacombe Regional Tourism has hosted a scavenger hunt around the sites of Lacombe. 

“Now that it’s more promoted to go out and enjoy the fresh air we decided to try to find something fun that anyone can do. Not just families but singles and we had a really good variety of people that participated which was a lot of fun and we got great pictures back from people who figured out the clues and submitted them for entry. We will be doing it again and it’s strictly online via Facebook,” explained Hand. 

The scavenger hunt includes zoomed-in snapshots of particular sites around the city in which people have to locate and take a picture with the site to qualify for an entry for a $50 dollar gift card to a business in Lacombe. The last scavenger hunt has just wrapped up and Jess Zylstra and her family were the lucky winners. Zylstra donated half of her prize to the Lacombe Foodbank.

Scavenger hunt winners, the Zylstra family. Photo courtesy of Lacombe Regional Tourism Facebook page.

Hand says the event was such a hit they are now collecting more photographs for the next round of the scavenger hunt to be held within the next few weeks.