It may still be in its infancy, but, judging by the energy and optimism displayed during a workshop in Banff last week, the idea of a Banff Hospitality and Tourism Institute appears to be gaining momentum.
On Jan. 25, 30 business and community leaders from the Bow Valley gathered at Moose Hotel & Suites to discuss the potential of creating a world-class educational institute to support the community and its businesses.
“There is a direct link between the quality of education and the quality of life in the Bow Valley,” said Banff school board trustee Luke Sunderland.
“How many people do we know that have moved outside of our communities because they feel like they want to have better opportunities for their children, or they simply can’t afford to live here?” asked Sunderland, who is also the general manager for Banff attractions and director with Pursuit.
“What if we turn those into strengths rather than challenges?”
To frame the discussion, he laid bare the current financial realities facing the Canadian Rockies Public School division, which recently revealed it could be facing a $300,000 shortfall after the provincial government tweaked its funding formula for high school students this year.
“The current reality is you have a fixed funding formula for schools that’s based on the number of students, so if we don’t have affordability, and if families move, we have less students and less revenue to split among the student body,” said Sunderland.
“The only way around this is to think differently and this school division has done a really good job of that,” he said, pointing to the Outdoor Learning Centre, which has become a revenue generator for the division to support its outdoor recreation programs.
While the crux of the idea is about providing enriched learning opportunities for students in the Bow Valley, he emphasized broader learning opportunities could pay dividends for the community as well as employers, who struggle to attract and retain employees.
To help the group think differently, Dr. Tom Thompson, former president of Olds College, was brought in to inspire the room to be bold and think outside the box.
“No idea is a bad idea,” said Thompson, who was president of Olds College for 16 years and is credited with bringing the college into the 21st century.
During his time at the college he oversaw construction of numerous facilities, including the world famous Community Learning Campus, the Ralph Klein Centre, and the Fine Arts & Multimedia Centre, among others.
The intent of the workshop was not to replicate Olds College, but to learn from Thompson’s experience and answer the most critical question: “Why are we doing this?”
“If you can get this part right it makes the rest of journey so much easier,” said Thompson, who spent the better part of three hours encouraging the group to dig deep and expand their craniums.
During the workshop he introduced the idea of the “golden circle,” a business model coined by visionary thinker Simon Sinek. He also introduced the idea of creating a unique selling proposition (UCP) in order to attract investment and stressed the importance of thinking big, building simple and acting now.
“We have a society that thinks these big ideas have to take enormous amounts of time,” said Thompson, explaining that doesn’t have to be the case.
In his experience at Olds College, it took 18 months from the inception of the idea to the time it got its first cheque to begin construction.
To break up the workshop, the group was split up several times to share ideas and try to nail down why they are doing what they are doing.
“Today you had 30 leaders from the Bow Valley region, they worked hard over three hours and it was heavy lifting, but at the end of the day they got dangerously close to actually having a powerful ‘why are we doing this?’ statement,” said Thompson, following the workshop.
The next step will be stitching together the three different “why statements” produced by the group into a concept paper to get the Banff Hospitality and Tourism Institution off the ground. It is expected to be finished by the end of February.
“The worst thing that can happen is taking your foot off the gas, so to speak,” said Thompson, who is optimistic there’s enough momentum to see an institution come to fruition in the next 18 months.
“There are four or five of these major tourism centres in our nation and I don’t see any reason why the Bow Valley area should not be number one in the country.”
