We’re counting down to the official first day of spring. As welcome a thought as that is, it’s also alarming for those of us in the tourism industry. The season is almost upon us.
The winter has been busier than usual. We’ve been immersed in online marketing, rebuilding the Tourism Prince Rupert website from scratch and strategically expanding our efforts in social media. It’s time-consuming but vital work. At the same time we’ve struggled to understand issues facing our tourism industry this year. Proposed fare increases on BC Ferries, issues around halibut allocation, and development of our potential for hosting cruise ship calls have all added to an unusually-hectic winter season.
It seems as if 2011 will signal the beginning of a slow recovery for our tourism industry. The 13% drop in room revenues in 2009 was devastating – though certainly not as dramatic a drop as was seen in much of the rest of the province. To put this into a provincial prospective, 2009 saw the sharpest single-year drop in tourism since comprehensive statistics began to be collected in 1997. It was a provincial blow, with 129,000 people, about one of every fourteen workers in B.C., employed in tourism and contributing over $6.3 billion to the provincial economy. The global recession struck the tourism industry in every corner of the province.
We haven’t seen the final official totals from the Ministry of Finance yet, but 2010 came in essentially flat. That’s good news only in the sense that it signaled an end to the spiraling losses. At Tourism Prince Rupert, where most of our marketing revenues are derived from hotel revenues, the downturn weakened our ability to help the local industry rebuild. Our marketing resources are directly linked to the real performance of the local industry – and, like the industry itself, we are vulnerable to all sorts of external threats including the broad performance of the global economy.
The good news is that we finally seem to be recovering from the effects of 2009. Advance bookings at local accommodation providers are strong, and our operators are cautiously optimistic that we will begin to see the recovery begin in 2011.
Of course there are many opportunities and challenges that may impact us moving forward. On one hand BC Ferries has begun to aggressively sell northern tours and tourism product; TPR provided sales staff training at the end of last month in order to strengthen that sales potential. On the other hand, the spectre of fare increases on BC Ferries, over a hundred per cent over the next four years, when the service is already perceived as prohibitively expensive, could provide a real blow. Likewise even the perception that the sport halibut allocation might not be sufficient to carry the industry through the season could impact our recovery in 2011. Our marketing efforts must be directed as much as possible toward mitigating these threats.
Another challenge facing the tourism industry this year is naturally the announcement that Norwegian Cruise Lines will not be sending a weekly ship into Prince Rupert in 2012. That means that the community’s performance this summer will have a real impact on the Port’s ability to lure regular ships back in 2013. From TPR’s perspective, that means our work in communicating Prince Rupert’s story in the U.S. market thus becomes even more critical than ever.
Still, we’re cautiously optimistic. The effects of the recession are abating, and people are again beginning to travel. If we can work toward modest gains in 2011, we can realistically hope for recovery to pre-2009 levels in 2012.