Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 24/99) - For some residents and entrepreneurs, tourism is vital to the growth of Yellowknife's economy.

And according to Bill Tait, owner and operator of Raven Tours Ltd. since 1983, Yellowknife has a long way to go before reaching its full potential as a tourism market.

"We need a more world-class product to bring people here," Tait said. "Compared to Whitehorse or Alaska, we just don't have those things.

"We need more plays, music and shopping. Yellowknife needs more interpretive things, more for them to do."

Tait does see one thing that Yellowknife has a leg up on compared to other tourist destinations.

"We're the biggest and best for aurora lights in Canada, so that's something to be proud of," Tait said.

Besides catering to many summer time tourist activities such as Great Slave Lake tours and sight-seeing along the Ingraham trail, Raven Tours has been heavily involved with the winter tourist traffic as well.

"We spear-headed the Japanese tourism market," Tait said. "We do a tour called the Great Canadian Experience that shows what Canadians do in the winter such as ice-fishing and snowmobiling."

Visitors from Japan have been regularly coming to the North since the late-80s -- first there was a trickle and by 1994, a full-force tourism boom.

"Sixty per cent of the Japanese visitors are young lady office workers, 20 per cent are couples and the other 20 per cent are seniors," Tait said.

Japanese anniversary

This year will mark the 10th anniversary of the Japanese tourism trade with the NWT.

For Gerry Honigman, part-owner of Arctic Excursions Ltd, tourism has grown increasingly as an important component of his air charter business.

"Tourism has a very high importance to us," Honigman said. "It's keeping us in business.

"Three years ago it seemed to be a 60/40 split with the mining industry over tourism and now that has reversed."

Dave Ramsay, Fred Henne Territorial Park superintendent and local City councillor, feels that there are certain things that can be done to bring more tourism to Yellowknife.

"I've been on the tourism side of things for eight years now and I feel that this territorial government overlooks tourism as far as marketing and profile are concerned," Ramsay said.

Huge stumbling block

Ramsay says that Highway 3 from Rae-Edzo to Yellowknife is currently one of Yellowknife's greatest stumbling blocks in drawing tourists to the city.

"Whether you have 100 miles of gravel or five miles of gravel, some people just won't come," Ramsay said. "They're driving hundreds of miles in motorhomes but they likely won't do it if they got to go over even five feet of gravel.

"This taking eight years to finish the road to Rae should be one of the government's top priorities."

Ramsay says he would also like to see Fred Henne Park expand to include the whole Long Lake area.

"Yellowknife's biggest drawing card is the natural areas around here," Ramsay said.

"I have a vision of there being a complete recreational area around Long Lake."

As far as city hall is concerned, Director of Economic Development for the City, Peter Neugebauer, says that tourism is becoming more and more a prominent topic on their agenda.

"Tourism and promoting the community is one of things that keep popping up," Neugebauer said.

"There are things we can't affect -- the price of gold, supply and demand -- but tourism is one thing that we can affect."

Starting in September, 1998, the City embarked on a modest, strategic marketing plan, mostly focusing on southern Alberta.

"We didn't go nationally because of budget restraints and we didn't want to be stretched too thin," Neugebauer said.

A series of brochures were created by the city, marketing it as the "diamond capital of North America" and place to come work, live and visit.

Neugebauer explains that tourism for Yellowknife, is composed of two different classifications --- summer and winter -- the differences are like that between night and day.

"We are blessed with the aurora lights and that's not something Canadians come to visit for," Neugebauer said. "Canadians come here to catch big fish, go canoeing and road touring.

"There's a real difference in winter. The way a trip here in the winter is packaged is by travel agents, mostly in Japan. On almost every corner there, there is a travel agent. There hasn't been a lot of independent travellers coming in the winter before but that is changing now."

"The Aurora phenomena is becoming well-known enough now that they are coming on their own."