Growing attendance and maintaining millions of dollars in economic benefit are the expectations from Agribition organizers this year.
President Michael Latimer says attendance could surpass last year’s number of 145,000 visitors based on the weather and numerous events on offer, adding he doesn’t believe the ongoing trade war with the United States will dampen attendance.
We still exchanged quite a few beef, well, at least on the beef cattle genetic side with the U.S. The U.S. Thanksgiving affects that probably more than anything else, but we still have great relationships, whether it’s with breed associations, back and forth with Canada or the breeders. These are like multi-generational friendships that a lot of these breeders have, so no, it’s not affecting the trade here at all.” Latimer said.
Regarding economic benefits for the City of Regina and the province, Latimer is unsure whether they’ll surpass the $116.5 million dollar mark set in 2023, but thinks they’ll be in that range again. CEO Shaun Kindopp adds they’ll want to updated those statistics soon.
“We’re working with the Government of Saskatchewan, mainly tourism Saskatchewan and tourism Regina. We want to revamp again, and we haven’t done it in our demographics in a little while. So we’re looking to revamp our demographics again and get a better picture of who’s coming to Agribition again. Look at doing a yearly economic impact. Recently they haven’t been cheap, so we haven’t done them every year, but again, it is an important number and again, it’s a number that we do want to know as well.” Kindopp said.
About 40 members of a Mexican delegation are expected to be here at Agribition and Kindopp says there are supposed to be visitors from other countries such as Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Australia and the United Kingdom.
The latest show data from organizers show there have been 1,200 international visitors from 69 countries at Agribition, about 130 events taking place with 416 trade show booths, and about 2,200 animals are at the event, including cattle, horses, bison, sheep, and alpacas.
