The Ottawa Valley Tourist Association will no longer produce its
travel guide, but a bigger and better tourist travel map of Renfrew County
is on the way.
The Ottawa Valley Road Map, which used to be 17 by 22 inches,
will now be a 22- by 34-inch map that folds into a 8 ½ x 3 ¾-inch product.
Following a survey of OVTA members and visitors to Renfrew County’s tourist information centres, it
was decided to shelve the guide that has been produced for about 20 years.
Renfrew
County visitors told OVTA
many of their travel plans were done online and that they weren’t using the
travel guide as a lure to the county, but as a product they tended to receive
once they arrived.
The road map, as in past years, will be released in January.
OVTA marketing co-ordinator Melissa Marquardt says the map will
include a larger map format, details on car and motorcycle routes, experience-based
vignettes and a listing of OVTA’s more than 200 business members.
OVTA was established in 1988, but the county has had a tourism
association since 1956. Its predecessors include the amalgamation of the
Madawaska and Upper
Ottawa Valley
travel councils to form the Upper Ottawa Valley Travel Council in 1974, and its
renaming as the Renfrew County Travel Association in 1976.
The last few years, OVTA published 80,000 copies of the travel
guide. In January 2013, there will be 100,000 copies of the Ottawa Valley Road
Map, to be distributed at trade shows and the visitor information centres, and
inserted in selected out-of-town newspapers. The Ottawa Valley Road Map will
also be posted online, at www.ottawavalley.travel