With the goal being to help spur more tourism during the off-season of fall and winter, the Alberta government has announced thirteen recipients of their newly created Tourism Growth Innovation Fund, which offers matching grants of up to $75,000.

That list includes the Red Deer Visitor and Convention Bureau, and the Town of Sylvan Lake, who will use this money to pull the trigger on an intuitive already in the works, explains Economic Development officer for Sylvan Vicki Kurz.

“We’re very pleased because this is one of the lead initiatives in council’s strategic plan. Last year, we worked with the Chamber of Commerce in partnership with them, and the steering committee, and we created a Sylvan Lake Festival and Events Strategy. This money we are getting now is for the actual implementation of that strategy.”

Kurz says it's all part of a bigger plan for the town.

“It’s a focus for downtown revitalization, and it sort of pairs up with Reimagine Sylvan, our waterfront redevelopment strategy. What we’re going to be doing is focusing on festivals and events in the off-season, so anything but summer.”

Next step is to figure out what events or festivals would work best in Sylvan, for which they've hired a consulting firm out of Ontario to team up with one here in Alberta to develop a strategy which would work to make Sylvan Lake a year round tourist destination.

The first meeting between those groups will be at the end of the month, with a bigger summit planned for January, where they will have a clearer picture of what events and festivals would work best in Sylvan Lake during the off-season months.