West Island hailed as world-class destination
What does the West Island have in common with Paris, Rome, Vienna and virtually every great city in the world? If you guessed fine restaurants, great shopping and beautiful scenery, you’d be only partially correct. What it has in common is that, just like in those cities, you can mail a postcard from here. Not just any old postcard, but one depicting Pointe Claire, Ste. Anne de Bellevue or Cap St. Jacques.
“We’re just trying to promote the West Island to bring people here,” said Claire Pelletier, general manager of the West Island Tourism Bureau. “We want the West Island to become a tourist attraction. We want people to know and see what we have to offer. We don’t want to be a well-kept secret any more.”
The tourism bureau has printed 16,000 postcards to be distributed in Montreal and other cities. Pelletier said it would be nice for tourists visiting Montreal to take a day excursion to the West Island – but it would be even nicer for people to skip Montreal and just spend a weekend in the West Island.
“The West Island is a fabulous region to promote,” Pelletier said. “We just want to make it more high-profile.”*
The postcards show Pointe Claire Village, a sugar shack on Cap St. Jacques, the boardwalk in Ste. Anne de Bellevue and cross-country skiers at Cap St. Jacques. The idea is to show what a great place the West Island is in any season.
Pelletier said it is too soon to gauge the reaction to the postcards, as distribution has just begun. But she is hopeful they will prove to be a boon to the area.
“The Americans I’ve given them to were really impressed. They didn’t even know the West Island existed,” Pelletier said.
Pelletier said that with everything it has to offer, the West Island deserves to be a must on any tourist’s agenda.
“People don’t come here because they don’t know about it but we want to change that,” she said.
