Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Today I wanted to speak about tourism in the NWT. Last week I attended the Rendezvous Canada down in Edmonton. It was a great pleasure to attend it with Mr. Ted Grant of Simpson Air, as well as Loyal and Ria Letcher from North Nahanni Naturalist Lodge.
It was great to be there and it was great to see all the ideas that are there from all jurisdictions in Canada. All jurisdictions are very supportive of their tourism industry.
For years our Northwest Territories Tourism has worked hard, with a limited budget to promote the NWT around the world. Recently, ITI boasted that tourism contributed over $110 million to our economy every year and that 70,000 visitors were drawn to the NWT in 2001. In this year’s budget there is a reduced funding to tourism.
Yukon, our main competitor for tourists, invests easily twice as much in tourism as the Government of the Northwest Territories. Three hundred thousand visitors contribute over $200 million to the Yukon economy every year, making tourism their biggest private sector employer. Even Nunavut has found a way to make a small increment to its tourism investment in 2012-2013. Not our government.
Tourism is one of our greatest resources. Not all our communities benefit from mining but every community can benefit from tourism. For every dollar we spend on tourism we get at least two back. There is a guaranteed return on investments in conferences, festivals, cultural and sporting events, and Aboriginal tourism.
Infrastructure investment that supports tourism should also be a priority. NWT Tourism has developed a detailed marketing plan to target potential visitors worldwide. If we increase their budget, they could tell us line by line exactly what they will use those added dollars for. Instead, the funding will be decreased. We are only losing out on opportunities for economic growth.
Thanks to the hard work of people in our tourism industry, the Northwest Territories is recognized around the world. TV shows like Ice Pilots and Ice Road Truckers have put us on the map. We are no longer known as the territory somewhere east of Alaska. The Northwest Territories is the best northern destination on the planet and we need the resources to prove it.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
