Mr. Speaker, of all sectors, tourism presents the greatest likelihood of creating economic opportunities in each region, and for each community, especially in the smaller communities. Today I would like to talk about a few specific initiatives to grow tourism in the Northwest Territories.
We are now in the first year of Tourism 2015: New Directions for a Spectacular Future, the Government of the Northwest Territories’ five-year tourism investment plan.
One of the first priorities under this plan was to establish an Aboriginal Tourism Champions Advisory Council. The council was formed this past July and has already made some progress establishing a strategy to grow Aboriginal tourism in the NWT. Planning is underway for an Aboriginal Tourism Champions Forum this spring. The forum will bring the Government of the Northwest Territories, the tourism industry and Aboriginal organizations together to explore ways to grow and develop the Aboriginal tourism sector.
The Tourism Product and Marketing Diversification Program has been highly successful over the past few years in creating and expanding world-class tourism products that attract visitors and increase their spending in the NWT.
The program helps tourism businesses to expand, diversify their product lines and market their businesses. This in turn helps them to diversify their businesses and creates new employment opportunities. Tourism businesses across the territory have benefitted greatly from this funding.
Well-trained tourism staff can deliver our products both professionally and knowledgably. The new Tourism Training Fund will assist with short-term training to provide skills for someone to get a job in the NWT tourism industry or improve the skills of those already in the industry. The training also helps to ensure tourism operators have a workforce trained to meet their needs. They will cover up to 75 percent of the training costs for businesses or individuals engaged in nearly any tourism sector in the NWT.
We are also coming out of a successful summer parks season and tourism numbers were up again this summer. This is an exciting time for NWT parks, which host around 25,000 campers per year. Over half of the campers from outside of the territory are over age 55. This segment of the Canadian population will grow by 45 percent by the year 2021. This is an age group that loves to camp. Therefore, we can expect to see strong growth in demand for campgrounds over the next decade.
Tourism is a significant contributor to the NWT economy and brought in nearly $100 million and 65,000 visitors this past year. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the 17th Legislative Assembly to continue the investment in new tourism products, marketing, support for the development of Aboriginal tourism, and maintaining our services and amenities in our parks and campgrounds.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
