The benefit to Dauphin brought by the community’s two major festivals and the economic potential of the new Northgate Trails development are widely known . . . anecdotely.
But thanks to the City of Dauphin’s Economic Development (ED) department, there is now some hard data to back it up.
Utilizing some of the proceeds of last year’s accommodation tax, this past summer Dauphin ED, in partnership with Sport Tourism Canada and The Data Jungle, conducted an economic impact assessment of Dauphin’s Countryfest, Canada’s National Ukrainian Festival and Northgate Trails.
The assessment looked at three factors: the spending of out-of-town visitors while they attend the events; the expenditures of the organizers in producing the events; and capital construction costs directly attributed to hosting.
Those numbers were used to extrapolate the impact on the regional, provincial and national economies.
That data was presented to the groups involved at a special meeting at city hall last week.
And the results are not surprising with it being revealed that through its $3,081,632, 2024 operational budget, Countryfest generated $5,577,610 worth of economic activity locally, $6,073,512 provincially and $9,453,100 nationally. The results are based on 452 responses to a survey conducted by ED staff and volunteers.
Canada’s National Ukrainian Festival, with a 2024 budget of $520,200, based on 200 survey responses, was shown to generate $2,579,557 of economic activity locally, $3,103,922 provincially and $4,481,878 nationally.
The numbers are not insignificant ED manager Martijn van Luijn said, when you consider that together, the total economic activity of Dauphin’s major festivals impact the local economy by $8,157,167, Manitoba’s economy by $9,177,434 and Canada’s by $13,934,978. You cannot forget that they also generate $2,490,000 in federal, provincial and municipal taxes, he added.
These numbers can be used to demonstrate the value of the festivals, while supporting funding and sponsorship programs, guiding strategic planning, advocating for community investment and promoting local engagement.
“The primary reason we did this was to help these organizations lobby for future funds and to help them build some evidence and data around how important this is to our community, so they can use that for future planning and for grant applications, etc,” van Luijn said.
“The cost of these studies was $15,000 and that’s probably something that they would not have done on their own. But after meeting with them, this was something that they needed.”
While the study of Northgate Trails did not follow the same format, user data collected through geo-fencing data with permission from user smart devices through Trails Canada Propulso Data Collection was used to create character profiles.
The results of the less than 1,000 user sample size showed that between January 2021 and December 2023, the facility has more than 600 visitors monthly, with October and January being the peak months.
Read the full story in this week’s Dauphin Herald.
