Heather Wright/The Independent

Tourism Sarnia Lambton’s new leader says Petrolia should continue to lean into its history to attract more tourists to the community.

Acting Executive Director Adam Veen is visiting communities across Lambton County to talk about what the tourist destination organization has been doing and how it wants to partner with communities to increase tourism.

Veen told Petrolia council April 13 that over 1.8 million people visited Sarnia-Lambton in 2025, an increase of about eight per cent over the year before. About 237,000 of those visitors were coming from the United States.

That’s unusual in southwestern Ontario, where other communities are hosting fewer tourist.

“We actually had a 1.5 per cent growth in overnight stays in 2025 and regionally across southwestern Ontario, all of our neighbors – from Chatham-Kent, Windsor, London, Norfolk, Oxford – they saw a decline. …it was somewhere between the five and 20 per cent decline.”

Veen says people are worried about the economy and political climate and most are looking for quick getaways. And they’re looking for an experience.

“They want to learn. They want to see how things are made. They want to be able to just experience natural elements beyond just your typical service industry,” he said.

Veen suggested Petrolia’s historic streetscape could draw visitors into the larger story of the oil industry.

“It’s something that is truly special … that feeling of those 100-year-old buildings, how they’ve transformed over the years, is they tell their own story when you’re walking downtown, and that’s one of the key features that we want to showcase.

“I see that oil heritage and storytelling, that bookable experience on the history of the town. There’s so many buildings that carry their own story, and that, as we say, if the walls could talk kind of thing, and there’s definitely opportunity to grow, share and foster that growth of the telling that story to the visitor, letting them experience that downtown.”

Veen added filmmakers are also looking to use historic towns, which could be another way to attract people to Petrolia.

TSL wants to continue partnering with the town, which already attracts upwards of 40,000 visitors a year to Victoria Playhouse Petrolia.

“We really want to make sure that we are hitting all elements of Lambton County, really showcasing the strength that we have in each municipality,” Veen said.

Deputy Mayor Joel Field was glad to hear that, noting that “I think sometimes at Tourism Sarnia Lambton, the Sarnia part gets hit first,” which he understands.

“We’re out here, too.”