Marketing nature's beauty worldwide.

The community of Wawa, located just off the TransCanada Highway, knows its strength lies in its natural resources and wilderness beauty, and plans are to market this to the world.

Lori Johnson, director of leisure services and tourism with the Wawa Tourism Commission, says the area has much to offer the international market, and the community has already started to form business ties in other countries.

On June 16, seven delegates from Ireland travelled to Wawa, along with Sault Ste. Marie MPP Tony Martin, as part of an eight-day trade mission to Ontario. The mission included municipal officials, business development professionals, government representatives and businesses from Sault Ste. Marie, along with Simone Chisholm, vice-chair of the Wawa Tourism Commission.

This mission was the result of a previous Ontario trade mission to Ireland last year, Johnson says. The trade mission was put together by Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa was invited to join.

"Although (Wawa) is small and does not have a huge budget for international marketing, we try to take advantage of all opportunities that come up," Johnson says.

Members of the trade mission went on a chartered flight with Watson's Skyways which took them from the Bush Plane Museum in Sault Ste. Marie on a scenic tour to Wawa. Once in Wawa, the group was taken on a tour of Aqua North Tree Nursery and a visit to Naturally Superior Adventure.

The tour was specifically geared toward the interest of the delegation members, Johnson says. They were in Wawa for over two hours and they were quite positive about the beauty of the area and its pristine wilderness, she adds.

"We're hoping, for the longterm, to provide tourism and business connections in the community. I think we had some connections made during this mission," Johnson says.

Although the visit was brief, Johnson says members of the delegation expressed interest in returning to the area and looking at potential business opportunities.

Johnson says delegations are just one of the ways in which Wawa is making international connections. The tourism commission's mission statement is to promote Wawa as an internationally recognized tourism destination for natural resource-based activities. And, since its inception in 1998, the commission has set its sights on international markets as a long-term goal.

They marketed the area at the 2000 Expo in Germany, and hosted people from Japan to increase awareness of the northern experience to the Asian market.

Ice fishing, dog sledding, curling, snowmobiling and other winter activities are all things which Johnson says can be taken back to certain markets and be seen as a sort of "exotic" place to vacation.

"Having the Japanese delegates over for our ice fishing derby was very successful," Johnson says. "There will be an article in (a Japanese) vacation magazine. We're looking at the high-end, individual market; Wawa's not ready for group tourists yet.'

With tourism being one of the area's main economical drives, Johnson says the tourism commission was something that was needed in the community to co-ordinate their efforts.

The commission, comprised of representatives from each tourism market in Wawa including fishing and hunting, road- based tourism, snowmobiling and adventure/ecotourism, spoke to local businesses to see what the general feeling was about tourism in the area and to find out what they felt was needed, she says.

Input was also gathered from outside of the area to find out what the general perspective was about Wawa and how people felt about the tourism opportunities in the area.

Through this process, they found that a basic element was missing, Johnson says. There were few signs pointing out the attractions in the area, and also a lack of signage to inform travellers that Wawa was just a short jump off the highway.

A major signage program was initiated, and $60,000 was spent on erecting new signs highlighting the area's tourist attractions, such as Lake Superior beaches, scenic lookouts and waterfalls. The signage program was the first priority of the tourism commission. Once that was in place, and their new logo was launched, Johnson says she felt the groundwork was there to start developing Wawa as a world-class tourism destination.

The tourism commission is conducting a more indepth survey on attitudes towards tourism in the area, as well as gathering input from the community, she says. The commission also met with the business associations and the chamber of commerce to form community partnerships.

The other priorities the commission outlined as areas to improve in order to boost tourism are the development of local heritage resources, developing a unified marketing approach, local trail and tour development, and tourism awareness encouraging a tourism outlook within the community.

"We have really solid information to base the next 10-year strategy on," Johnson says. "We're right on target. I feel strongly that we'll soon get a new wave of momentum going in terms of tourism."

Johnson says one of the most important things for the tourism commission to focus on is diversifying their markets. There is already a strong base market from highway travellers, now she says they need to go beyond that and realize their wilderness and natural resources are attractive to other international markets as well.