This year’s Pumpkinfest has pumped almost six million dollars into the Saugeen Shores economy.
Chamber of Commerce Events Co-ordinator Sally Hunt says they did a random survey sampling about two per cent of the 55 thousand people who passed through the gates over the Pumpkinfest weekend.
Of those, Hunt says 91 per cent of people were in Port Elgin specifically for the event, and were staying for an average of 3.15 days.
That’s up from an average stay of two days last year.
Hunt attributes that to the extended evening events – Friday night’s Pub-kin-crawl and the Saturday night dance put on by the firefighters.
Hunt says an average of 106 dollars was spent per person per day of their stay.
That generated an economic impact of 5.83 million dollars this year, up from last year’s 4.1 million dollars.
The majority of visitors continue to come from throughout southwestern Ontario and the GTA.
Hunt still hopes the festival can attract people from farther away.
She says most of the American visitors are growers and she’s hoping they’ll spread the word to other growers in the States about Port Elgin’s Pumpkinfest.
