CORNER BROOK, N.L. — While there’s no official figure, the Corner Brook Come Home Year committee is estimating upwards of 5,000 people came to Corner Brook to take part in the recent event.
Add those to the approximately 20,000 people who live here and the other visitors who happened upon the city during the July 19-28 celebration, and that’s a lot of people.
With all those people around there had to be an impact on city businesses.
“It was an incredible boost to our sales," said Tammy Humphries, manager of Island Treasures in the Corner Brook Plaza.
“After such a slow winter, we really needed it.”
Island Treasures was one of a few businesses that brought in Come Home Year merchandise.
Humphries said they opened a second location in the plaza just to deal in that merchandise and the move was a good idea. They also took the store on the road.
“We set up at all the events and we did well at all the events.”
Mike Hicks said Come Home Year was a busy time for the Crown and Moose restaurant in the Greenwood Inn and Suites on West Street.
Hicks is the food and beverage manager for the restaurant and operations manager for the hotel.
He said it’s tough to tell if the increase was all Come Home Year-related because being in the hotel the restaurant sees mostly tourists along with a lot of local traffic, but he’s willing to say it did make a difference.
“All I know is that the week of Come Home Year was by far busier than it was last year during the same week,” he said.
“We were consistently busy for the whole time.”
With the street closed to vehicle traffic on July 27 for the Best on West car show, Hicks said they saw a lot of people that day and his staff did an amazing job of handling it all. He said there was a bit of a wait, but people didn’t seem to mind.
“It’s just a busyness that Corner Brook is not used to.”
He’d love to see something like that happen again and said the next time he’d be more prepared.
When it comes to the hotel, it’s a bit harder to say if a lot of people stayed there because of Come Home Year, as it is a busy time of year for them anyway. He discovered a lot of people who did come home stayed with relatives to save on expenses.
Corner Brook Come Home Year committee chair Gladys Batten said the event was definitely “a win-win for everybody.”
She said it was a lot of hard work and financially, the committee made enough money to pay all its bills. “With no federal funding and no provincial funding,” she proudly added.
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