The Town of Canmore’s sustainable economic development and tourism strategy is fundamentally flawed, according to Canmore Business and Tourism officials, because it treats economic development and tourism as separate goals.
CBT president and CEO Andrew Nickerson delivered the message, and solutions to the problem, to council at its Committee of the Whole meeting earlier this month.
“We don’t have a tourism sector and an economy – what we have is an economy of which tourism is a major driver of it,” Nickerson said.
He said the goal is to not separate tourism and everything else in the economy, but realize the various sectors are all inextricably linked to visitation.
When it comes to the sustainable economic development and tourism strategy, however, Nickerson said CBT is philosophically aligned with it, but the challenge is in measuring whether goals are being met.
He recommended having measurable results-based goals instead of action items. In other words, a goal should be set along with a methodology to reach it and measure whether that occurs.
“It is a case of saying ‘what are the end goals’ versus a series of actions and if those are done everything will be OK,” he said. “What we are really looking to do is work with council over the coming months to help create those metrics.”
Nickerson described the strategy as having arbitrary language – words like vibrant, successful and strong – but no way to define what that actually looks like.
Asked about diversifying the economy outside tourism, he said it depends on what overarching goal is prompting going in that direction. Without a specific goal in mind, diversifying the economy is also an intangible action item, he added.
“What we are trying to focus on right now is business retention and expansion as opposed to finding new businesses to come to town,” Nickerson said.
CBT’s Ron Remple said a key to meeting economic development initiatives is having baseline data on sectors of the economy to measure whether or not they are growing.
As a result, the organization launched a project to collect sales data from retail, food and beverage and accommodation sector businesses. The data will be received and aggregated by Collins Barrow Bow Valley and individual businesses’ sales data will remain confidential. However, the information will provide CBT with a baseline and the ability to analyze economic performance and trends.
“It is fundamental to the whole economic development strategy, because if we don’t know where we are right now, or where we want to be, it is hard to know if the economy is growing or remaining stable,” Remple said.
He added the second part of the initiative is sector development plans and CBT has three in place and three at various stages of development. In place are plans for the downtown retail industry, the food and beverage industry and the wedding industry. Under development for 2014 are plans for arts and culture, knowledge-based and home-based small businesses and the health and wellness industry.
Remple told council the upcoming new food and beverage event for Canmore, Uncorked, was a result of meeting with members of that industry.
CBT has also contracted Deloitte to conduct a pre-feasibility study on whether there is a business case to pursue the idea of developing a conference centre.
Nickerson said CBT working on a long-term vision for tourism in Canmore – and he expects it to be ready this spring.
