Like many Albertans, we were pretty excited with news that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were heading to the province after their wedding.
Requests for tours of our oil sands mining operations increased significantly in 2010 compared to the previous year.
So it seemed a reasonable enough expectation, bearing in mind those who have already paid the oil sands a visit.
- Warren Buffett
- Gloria Reuben
- James Cameron
- The Mythbusters
- Maude Barlow
- National Wildlife Federation
- Natural Resources Defense Council
- Pembina Institute
While the royal couple decided to take a pass on touring our site this time around, there are plenty others queuing up to pay us a visit.
There is huge interest in seeing our operations first hand. Requests for tours were up 40% last year over the previous year. That meant a total of 172 tours showing over 3,300 people around. Groups ranged from government officials, customer and suppliers, to environmental activists, and foreign delegates, to representatives from universities and colleges throughout North America.
What’s so encouraging for us is that far and away the bulk of our visitors are everyday people outside of our industry who want to educate themselves about oil sands development so, we hope, they can engage in an informed dialogue. This significant public interest is leading us to develop an online virtual tour, which we hope to have on our website by year end.
In the meantime, if you’d like to see the resource for yourself, learn how it’s developed and the extent of its impacts, check out Fort McMurray Tourism. And don’t forget the very cool Oil Sands Discovery Centre nearby.
