The city has unveiled a new sign to promote local tourism, but in the coming months the letters G-U-E-L-P-H could be on the move from its current location in Market Square.
Many municipalities have installed large letter signs in tourist destinations, most notably Toronto at Nathan Philips Square and the Ottawa sign in Byward Market. Those signs are large enough that people can pose sitting in the letter O.
The Guelph sign is much smaller, with letters measuring about two-and-a-half feet tall.
“The big letters have been done,” said Matthew Thomas, manager of Tourism and Destination Development for the city of Guelph. “What we really tried to not do what other cities were doing.”
Instead, the Guelph sign has been created with local tourism initiatives in mind.
“The idea with tourism right now is that it’s all about local exploration,” said Thomas. “What we want is for people in Guelph to find out what is happening in the city, to find reasons to explore different neighbourhoods and especially downtown.”
Currently, the sign is situated in Market Square in front of city hall beside the skating rink.
“The letters are part of a bigger campaign, which was to animate the downtown and to make Market Square into almost a ski village type atmosphere with Adirondack chairs and snowflake lights and reasons to come, bring the family socially-distanced and also take pictures and share them,” said Thomas.
Physical distancing and mask-wearing is required in the skating rink area and monitored by security, which Thomas said was something the city thought of before putting it out.
“We are already limiting capacity and are monitoring that area, so that is a good place for it to start,” said Thomas.
Later in the year the sign could make stops in other parts of the city and Thomas noted the word Guelph can be disassembled and the letters arranged in other ways, including vertically.
“It’s lightweight and portable and it will probably be making an appearance at a lot of parks, future festivals and events and anything that Tourism Guelph is involved in,” said Thomas.
The sign cost about $3,000 to build and was fully funded by the province’s Regional Tourism Organization. The contract went to Guelph-based J Murphy CNC Woodworking and the installation was completed by city staff.
“It was important for us that as much of the tourism money that was given to us could stay in the community and so we put it to work,” said Thomas.
The city is benefitting from the tourism aspect, with photos already being uploaded to social media like Instagram.
“It already is paying off. We are already seeing people posting about it, so people are excited about it,” said Thomas.
He said the lighting up of the covered bridge has similarly been a big win for local tourism.
“That has been a great return on investment because if you go on Instagram especially you see lots of people taking pictures of it,” said Thomas.
