Thanks to a lack of support from the business community, Canmore suddenly, but not entirely unexpectedly, finds itself without a tourism marketing agency.
For years now, the majority of Canmore Business and Tourism’s funding, you see, has been supplied by a volunteer group of hoteliers which, together, formed a local Destination Marketing Fund (DMF).
Note the term “volunteer,” which is critical to the situation as it now exists (page 1).
DMF was formed in the summer of 2008 by a group of 11 hoteliers that shared the vision of a vehicle to fund tourism and special events to attract visitors to Canmore and Kananaskis. Each operation voluntarily tacked a three per cent charge onto room rates to fund tourism initiatives.
Voluntarily …
In 2009, the DMF handed over $125,000, “which essentially doubled their (the former Tourism Canmore Kananaskis) budget,” said then-DMF chairman Steven Dyck and manager of the Best Western Pocaterra Inn and Econolodge-Canmore Mountain Lodge.
For 2010, the goal was $200,000 and, as time has crept by, the total ballooned to $7.1 million for Canmore Business and Tourism, according to current board chair Donna Trautman.
At the time, DMF volunteer hoteliers were committed to the belief that tourism was the number one income generator for business in Canmore – and they were willing to put some money where their collective mouths were in order to support that vision.
Unfortunately, it’s now abundantly clear that the DMF’s original outside-the-box, lend a hand, let’s work together attitude and vision was not shared by all accommodation providers in Canmore, let alone other business owners who were content to enjoy the benefits of DMF’s work through CBT efforts – without contributing anything.
Worse yet, not only did other business interests not take it upon themselves to voluntarily contribute to DMF as a means of supporting tourism, some accommodation providers charged the three per cent, but did not turn it over to DMF.
Clearly, the attitude was that as long as others were providing CBT’s funding and tourism remained strong, everything was rosy.
The rose-coloured glasses can now be put away.
To recap – over the past eight years, a dedicated group of volunteer hoteliers forked over $7 million to support tourism efforts in Canmore while other businesses in town benefitted from those efforts without any financial implications.
So today, as accommodation providers paying into the DMF have dwindled, it’s understandable that those who have continued bearing the financial brunt of supporting CBT have grown weary and are calling it quits; thus causing cessation of the town’s tourism agency.
Some years ago, and the Outlook was criticized for its opinion, we stated it was simply not enough that DMF hoteliers alone were responsible for funding tourism efforts.
It should be, and should have been, obvious that tourism is a Canmore-wide business initiative; that virtually all businesses benefit from tourism; that many jobs/ careers are tied absolutely to tourism and that businesses ranging from coffee shops to grocery stores to bike shops, restaurants, hardware stores, galleries, clothiers and outdoor equipment sales (the list goes on and on) etc., benefit.
In the intervening years, nothing has been done by other business sectors to find alternate sources of funding for CBT, which is truly unfortunate. Downtown businesses must pay into the BRZ (business revitalization zone); why not have businesses of all kinds town-wide pay a minimal fee to keep tourism initiatives going?
What next? Who knows?
In all likelihood, should the situation remain static, tourism may not suffer for the rest of 2016 as people have already made their travel plans and bookings.
But it’s into the future, without ongoing tourism agency support, where only time will tell as to the eventual cost of the current lack of funding.
