Exploring Collaborative Economic Development in Trois Rivières

Exploring Collaborative Economic Development in Trois-Rivières

Trois-Rivières, founded in 1634, is halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. It is the second oldest French-speaking city in North America and is home to a small and vibrant English-speaking community.

Prompted by its Collaborative Economic Development work to enhance the potential of cruise ship tourism for communities up and down the St. Lawrence River, CEDEC has been exploring and mapping the economic assets of the Trois-Rivières region. It is identifying the economic features that could be of practical use in framing and taking advantage of Collaborative Economic Development opportunities.

So far, CEDEC’s exploration has identified:

  • a plan to welcome a first winter cruise ship in 2025, making cruise ship tourism a year-round economic activity;
  • the importance of coordination with other ports to attract more cruise ship tourism to Trois-Rivières and enhancing the experience of cruise ship passengers travelling the St. Lawrence;
  • community openness to align local merchants’ retail activities with cruise ship itineraries,
  • the willingness of the public, private and civil society sectors of the community to work together to take full advantage of this promising economic development lever.

In this exploratory phase, CEDEC is assessing if cruise ship tourism can create and sustain new employment (especially for bilingual talent), expand existing hospitality businesses and social enterprises, develop start-ups and supply of new tourism services such as a winter tour packages tailored to cruise ship passengers. Fundamentally, CEDEC is exploring with community stakeholders how local assets can be leveraged to increase cruise ship tourism visits, stays, and spends in the region.

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CEDEC’s exploration in Trois-Rivières demonstrates how its Collaborative Economic Development approach works. This unique approach focuses squarely on informing, mobilizing, equipping, and supporting public, private, and civil society stakeholders to work together to better their economy at the local, regional, provincial, national, and global levels.

The Trois-Rivières community, including the English-speaking community and population of the region, play a purposeful, dynamic, and meaningful role in creating jobs, securing employment, growing businesses and social enterprises, strengthening trade in goods and services, and improving the economic quality of life of communities and their members.

CEDEC’s unique economic development approach emphasizes how collaboration creates the innovation required to generate tangible and sustainable economic benefits for individuals and the Trois-Rivières community.