The BKT Tires World Men’s Curling Championship is just around the corner, and Moose Jaw is on track to welcome an estimated 55-60,000 curling fans throughout the event’s nine-day run.
That many visitors is presenting an exciting opportunity for Tourism Moose Jaw, who have been working tirelessly as they prepare the city for such a major international event.
“It’s going to be quite fun. We’ve been working very closely with Curling Canada, we have a great working relationship with them and there are just so many details in preparing for this,” said Donna Fritzke, Tourism Moose Jaw’s Executive Director.
“(Curling Canada’s representative) will be here for a couple of weeks and we’ve been working really closely with her to make sure that our guests and visitors are welcome.”
The City of Moose Jaw and the Downtown Moose Jaw Association are also getting in the spirit, and the decorating has already begun.
“We have the flags hanging downtown of all the all the countries that are being represented by the curling team,” said Fritzke.
“We've invited the downtown businesses to paint their windows and to say, welcome to Moose John and just have some fun with it.”
Fritzke said the team at Tourism Moose Jaw plans to get the athletes in on the fun as well, extending invitations to all the curlers to come out to the visitors' centre to take photos with Mac the Moose.
“I met with another lady the other day and she is putting together welcome packages for all the curling teams, and we are going to be putting hoodies in the rooms of the Canadian curlers to make sure that they feel welcome and have a souvenir to take home from Moose Jaw.”
On top of the decorating and planning several members of the team will be on site at the Temple Gardens Centre spreading the word about all there is to do in Moose Jaw and handing out visitor guides to attendees.
“We want to make sure that people are made to feel welcome and if they have questions or if there's something that we can do to help them.
I think that's really fun to be able to have all of these different groups of people here.”
Fritzke noted that the estimated number of visitors - between 55,000 and 60,000 people - is nearly three times the average number of tourists seen per year in Moose Jaw. She explained that the economic and marketing potential of the event is another boost for the tourism industry, which brought in over $134 million to the city last year alone.