Cochrane Tourism and Cochrane Economic Development are launching a five-year tourism strategy on Mar. 1 that introduces the next step in building Cochrane's tourism industry.

Being held at the Cochrane Ranchehouse, 101 RancheHouse Rd., attendees will be briefed on the background of the strategy and learn the objectives, goals and action plan aimed to further harness Cochrane's tourism potential.

Collaboration is essential and feedbacks, ideas and potential partnerships and joint opportunities with local business owners and event organizers are crucial.

Jo-Anne Oucharek, who was named executive director of Cochrane Tourism on Oct. 1, is excited to present the information and gain input and further collaboration.

"It's a five-year strategy taking tourism in a slightly different, but related, direction with a different approach to implementation," Oucharek explains. "We want to work closely with the businesses and event organizers in town to discuss how they can collaboratively market. It's hard to bring tourists to town with one business, but together we can showcase what we have and that's a big part of Cochrane getting on the map."

We are looking for feedback from businesses and event organizers because we've determined community objectives that we want to establish over the next four years and some action plans to go with that and we want some feedback to let us know whether we're on target with that. They're the ones who are going to be the customer services of the travellers who will be coming here and we want to make sure we're on the same page."

An updated strategy has been in works for some time and is research completed by Alberta Tourism has also helped to define the most common traveller likely interested in visiting the Cochrane area.

"If you can figure out who is your traveller, then you can market to that traveller because there are certain experiences they are looking for and certain products that they will come to see, so it's a great resource for businesses to be able to know who is the traveller, especially in the tourism business."

"You can't market to everyone so you have to pick who you want to market to and it will depend upon what the businesses think the tourist attractions are here in Cochrane."

Marketing to the demands of potential visitors has changed over the years.

"Travellers today really wants more. 'Tell me what you have in experiences, tell me what you have there, tell me the best things. Where can I get the best burger, steak?' Travellers want to know that, they want to know what the locals know, so we need to be able to capture that and put that out to the world."

She believes many of those experiences and many of our assets are hidden gems to visitors and require more exposure through various forms of media, including visual, video and stories place in selective print publications with an online presence. They will not be producing the tourism guide "Alternate Routes" this year, while they consider options for 2019. Instead, they are preparing a  business guide with ideas on what to do and where to go during your stay. It will be distributed in town and through Alberta information centres across the province.

Letting residents know what's available here and getting them excited about their community also plays a big role.

"If you have the residents on board and they know what's here and they're excited about what's happening in their own town that's one of the best resources you have for the rest of the world to know about it."

She says there are many great events already taking place in town and they want to work closely with the organizers to help them where possible. She also sees the potential for many other events and points to Skijordue, in Okotoks (that involves Cochrane's Half Hitch Brewing Co.), as one example. It involves skiers and snowboarders being pulled by horses to complete a course involving several jumps.

"What better place to have something like that than in Cochrane with our Western heritage and our huge population of young skiers and outdoors people."

Cochrane is also an idea staging hub for visitors. There are many attractions, like the Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park and Ghost Lake reservoir and some right in the community, like the Cochrane Ranche and underdeveloped access to the Bow River. It's also ideal for people visiting mountains who want to avoid the high cost and the crowds in Canmore or Banff.

"All these really neat things are a short distance from Cochrane, so we establish ourselves as a hub."

Before moving to Cochrane in 2014 from Airdrie, Oucharek and her husband used Cochrane in that very manner.

"We already used Cochrane as our staging place. We would come here and have coffee and then go on a motorcycle tour. We'd come here have breakfast and then go to the mountains. We always knew it was a great community and I'm happy to be part of promoting it."

Oucharek has a photography business, is a long-time independent business owner and has worked to assist small businesses with strategic planning through Community Futures.

"Small business is my passion and tourism is the same. There's lots of potential growth in what Cochrane can do."

But first comes putting down a plan on paper.

"If you don't have a strategy, you're usually just being very reactive."

They are asking interested people to RSVP and to register or obtain further information you can contact Oucharek at 403-828-8397 or email cochranetourism@gmail.com.