Cochrane Tourism was quick to respond to the newly announced tourism funding being made available by the Alberta Government.

Late last week, the province announced the creation of the Tourism Growth Innovation Fund that will provide $1 million to help expand Alberta's tourism offerings, with the focus upon winter and shoulder seasons, rural projects and indigenous cultural experiences. The fund will offer matching grants of up to $75,000.

The funding is designed to help develop projects beyond the province's two major cities and mountain parks, who usually gobble up the majority of provincial and federal funding and that's good news for communities like Cochrane.

Cochrane Tourism executive director Jo-Ann Oucharek says they plan to pursue both destination development and product development funding streams.

"I have just briefly read through the guidelines, but we have several projects in the pipeline that would qualify and plan to work on submitting applications in April," says Oucharek.

The timing is perfect for Cochrane Tourism. They just completed their new five-year strategy that was presented to council last week.

The plan was completed by Cochrane Tourism and Cochrane Economic Development and with input from Travel Alberta and local tourism-related companies. It focuses heavily on working together to provide a better experience for visitors.

"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," Oucharek explained in an earlier interview.

Objectives outlined include developing a Cochrane experience to make it a unique destination, provide guidance, resources and partnerships to enhance existing tourism products, attracting and creating new tourism products and maintain and to upgrade and enhance the municipal infrastructure to better serve the Cochrane experience.

The grant program has a similar thrust of strengthening collaboration among tourism stakeholders.

In a riding that has a large potential to expand its tourism industry beyond the mountain parks, Westhead says the program can potentially provide a more stable stream of revenue in the off-season and winter months.

"I see it as a really good opportunity for people who are looking to get into the tourism business or those already in it who are looking to expand their options and give them additional options and support for growing their business. It will give new opportunities for tourists, as well.