Business View Civil and Municipal | January 2021

157 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL JANUARY 2021 TOWN OF L INCOLN, ONTAR IO and promote the Town of Lincoln in the tourism industry. We hired our first Tourism Coordinator in August, and she’s hit the ground running with some marketing strategies to help bring people – safely and responsibly, of course – into our community.” The Town has just formalized a partnership with the City of St. Catharines, largest city in the Niagara region and sixth largest urban area in the province, to orchestrate some joint marketing initiatives. “We think there’s an opportunity to market our rural experiences versus their urban ones,” says Di Ianni. “There’s a good trade-off between our two communities.” GO Transit (a division of Metrolinx), the regional public transit system serving a population of more than seven million across the Greater 50 wineries they have in their own backyard. “We host some wonderful events here,” says Di Ianni, referencing the annual Winter WineFest that takes over Jordan Village every January, and the always indulgent Niagara Icewine Festival. “In 2018, we developed our economic development strategy, identifying how we could grow our Greenbelt community and, in places where our urban boundaries are set, focusing on tourism and some of that value- added agriculture. Our tourism strategy, which was just approved and completed in June 2020, calls for the Town of Lincoln taking on a larger role in managing the overarching destination. We’re working with our destination marketing organization, the Twenty Valley Tourism Association, re-developing and re-envisioning what that organization looks like, to support