Steven Bowie is definitely what one would call a “sports nut."
Bowie, who has tried his hand at everything from hockey and soccer to rowing and tennis, and pretty much everything in between, says he is excited to be using his passion for all things sport in his new role as sports tourism development officer with Tourism Barrie. He joined the team Nov. 8.
The Brock University grad told BarrieToday that when he learned of the local opportunity, he felt it was a “perfect fit."
“With us trying to rebound from COVID, sports tourism is going to be one of the first things that opens back up. It’s good to have that specific branch being focused on,” he said.
Sports tourism includes anyone coming to the city for a sport-related reason, such as a hockey tournament, marathon, regatta, etc.
Since 2019, tourism has been partly funded by the municipal accommodation tax (MAT). That means the amount of funding a city gets for tourism is actually based on how many people stay in its hotels.
“The biggest impact to tourism for the City of Barrie is an overnight stay,” said Tourism Barrie executive director Kathleen Trainor, so in order to increase funding, you need to increase the number of overnight stays.
“Twenty-five per cent of the people who stay in a Barrie hotel are here for a sport. We want to increase that," she added. "Barrie could become a premier sport destination in Ontario. When sporting tournaments come in, they actually rent your facilities, eat at your restaurants, shop at your stores — so they bring in additional revenue into your city (and that) helps pay for arenas, infrastructure and facilities.”
Bowie says Barrie is primed to be a four-season sports destination. Not only is the city located within proximity to multiple ski hills and other sites for winter activities, its lakeside location also means there's a huge untapped potential to bring in a variety of different summer events.
“A lot of my job is laid out in the tourism master plan. They did a study as to where Barrie was strong for tourism and where it may be lacking a little bit. A lot of that is sport focused, so essentially that is my handbook," he said. "I can see what we are looking to improve on and find ways to make those changes, and hopefully build the offerings we have."
Day-to-day, Bowie will serve as liaison between the various hotels and motels, the city’s recreation department, as well as the various sporting organisations within the city to avoid overlap of events.
“Our goal is to get as many people and build as many tournaments (and events) as we can. In order to do that though there needs to be a clear communication between everybody involved. If there’s three or four tournaments planned on being hosted on the same weekend, we can’t have that because there aren’t enough hotels in the area to manage that.”
Bowie told BarrieToday he had initially planned on taking a business program when he entered university, but when he learned he could combine that with his love of sports, it was a no-brainer. He graduated from Brock’s sport management program in 2017.
“I have always felt sport has enabled me to be the person I am (today). It’s given me opportunities to meet people and grow as a person," he said. "When I had the opportunity to get into the sports world, I felt I had to take it and become the person who was helping build communities through sport, and create programs that were going to make people into these great citizens going forward like it did for me.
“It just felt like a natural progression to give back to something that had given me so much growing up.”
Coming into a role where he is set to help grow tournaments of not only what is considered to be the “standard” sports, but also to start growing a variety of niche sports is exciting, he said.
“Barrie has that opportunity to host so much in terms of its sports capacity. We can be hosting sailing, fishing and rowing events because of the water we have here," Bowie said. "It opens us up to being able to do everything.
"There’s not a sport I can think of that Barrie wouldn’t be able to host... and that’s a very big thing to build our tourism.”
