Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to once again thank the Minister responsible for ITI for working with NWT Tourism and developing a meeting and conference planner for 2011. It’s a great first step. It’s a great document. I’m wondering if the Minister will commit to taking that second step, which is to find some finances to provide some financial benefit or incentive to local businesses, organizations or associations who convince southern institutions, southern businesses to come up north for conferences and meetings. It’s a great place to have a meeting. What are we going to do to help our businesses bring them up? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this issue, because it’s very important for us to continue to find ways to attract visitors to the Northwest Territories. As the Member indicated, there has been a significant decline in the business traveller sector of visitors to the Northwest Territories. With the reduced airfares, especially to Yellowknife, we have a significant increase in the number of visitors to the Northwest Territories; but in the business traveller category, the numbers have decreased by 22 percent, which is a significant number. The dollars that represents is $16.5 million, so anything we can do to increase the number of visitors to the Northwest Territories, we will certainly look seriously at. Thank you.
That’s good news. What I’m looking for is something similar to what’s happening in the Yukon. They have an incentive program that’s available to associations when those associations bring their national and international counterparts to come to the Yukon for conferences. I’m not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination would we spend the kind of money they are, but there are still advantages. A little bit of money can go a long way. Has the Minister had his department explore the possibility of providing some sort of small financial benefit or incentive to our local associations when they go out and encourage their national and international counterparts to come north, anywhere in the North, for conferences and/or business meetings? Let’s get some of that $16.5 million back. Thank you
In follow-up to the questioning by the Member, I did ask my Tourism Marketing Advisory Committee to look at ways to provide financial incentives, and in their view they feel that with the discounts that are offered by hotels and airlines and the promotional items that can be provided by local businesses, that that might be sufficient. I like the idea of looking at what the Yukon is doing. We do already provide a certain level of financial incentives through our SEED program. Thank you.
I’m happy the Minister is going to be looking into that. I would say what his advisors are telling him may not exactly be working, because we have experienced a $16.5 million drop in business travel. So once again, I think there’s an advantage to provide small incentives, small financial incentives. We could also go with a base payment with maybe another small fund or amount based on the number it brings, because the more people you bring, the more money you can get. Will the Minister explore the possibility of actually creating an incentive based on the number of people that people can bring up for conferences and business meetings? Thank you.
We are committed to increase the number of business travellers to the North, so we’ll certainly be prepared to look at this area of financial incentives, and we’ll look at what the Yukon is doing, and we’ll also look at how the money that we’re spending through the SEED funding, how that’s working with regard to increasing the number of business travellers. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
