Mr. Speaker, it’s well known that I’m a big supporter of tourism. I can tell you honestly that I’ve got the scars to prove it.
The fact is the Territorial government, I think, is being outpaced by other territories such as the Yukon, and even Newfoundland, about promoting tourism and regional tourism. I’m not a guy who goes to bed too early at night, I should say, and sometimes at one o’clock in the morning I see these wonderful ads by Newfoundland. They really draw you in, and I can’t help but think: “Jeez, I’d love to go to Newfoundland.” And then a few minutes later there’s a Yukon ad, and it’s a wonderful commercial about “Come to the Yukon.” But you know, something I never see is “Come to the Northwest Territories.” It seems to kind of disappoint me. I think we’re really letting our residents down in the Northwest Territories.
My question is to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. What is he doing to promote the Northwest Territories in a national profile, to raise our profile so we can help bring in some of those fresh tourism dollars to all regions of the Northwest Territories?
Mr. Speaker, I’m very pleased to see the honourable Member come to realize the value of tourism and that he will support making more resources available to promote the Northwest Territories.
I think that as a territory we have been very successful in the last few years in increasing the level of resources available for tourism. We have been working in partnership with the N.W.T. Tourism Association. We have the Tourism 2010 Strategy. We have more than doubled the amount of money we are investing in tourism.
Working with the other two territories of Yukon and Nunavut, we established a marketing campaign that was held in conjunction with the Canada Winter Games and that was very successful. For the first time in nine years we had the federal government invest in tourism for the Northwest Territories. So we have really increased the exposure for the Northwest Territories.
To be able to reach the par of a province like Newfoundland, I think we would have to look at investing more resources. We would probably have to look at perhaps introducing a hotel tax, which every jurisdiction in Canada has except the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It costs money to advertise on a national basis, and advertising on TV costs a lot of money. That’s the direction we have to go.
Mr. Speaker, I think there are a lot of partners out there that would be more than willing to engage, such as the Canadian Tourism Commission — the CTC. The fact is that I think the potential does exist out there. The fact is we’re missing out on a huge market that comes to the Northwest Territories, such as the southern Canadian market as well as the American market.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to hear what else the Minister is doing. Is he advocating for a potential hotel tax to help find new revenues so we can reinvest in tourism advertising, or is he searching for other types of joint partnerships? If so, what partnerships is he considering at this time? If I may note, we just cut back on some of the tourism product diversification programming money that was out there for our tourism market, tourism companies. People are having a difficult time drawing in a new market. I want to hear how he’s promoting this.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to correct the Member. We haven’t cut back on the tourism product diversification program. All we’re doing is re-profiling the money so we can cash-flow it better. We’re still working on the same levels that were approved previously. I think there’s a whole number of different areas that have potential.
I should point out that we keep track of our tourism numbers very closely, and while our overall tourism numbers continue to increase, what we are finding is starting to get disturbing. The numbers for the rubber-tire tourists and so on have been starting to decline, also for the consumptive tourists, like sport hunters and fishermen. The only area of increase is for business travellers. We have to keep that in mind when we are looking at ways to spend money for tourism. I think the most important thing is that we want to continue to keep the federal government investing in tourism.
Can the Minister tell this House today: would a typical tourist, whether they are rubber-tire or they come here just to fish — things like that — spend more money than a business traveller? As far as I see it, a business traveller would come anyway. So who spends more money?
I would suggest that the business traveller who comes up and stays on as a tourist would probably spend more money.
Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
No questions.
