Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services
While the NWT Arctic Tourism Association is reluctant to paint the tragedy as a potential boon for business in the North, it intends on trying to market the NWT as a safe travel destination.
"We are looking at how to portray that in a marketing campaign without being obvious about it," said Arctic tourism director of marketing David Grindlay. "The worst thing we could do is sit back and do nothing."
The fall aurora sightseeing market has been hit particularly hard. Raven Tours reported cancellations from between 250 and 300 guests, the majority of whom were Japanese.
According to figures given by Renewable Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, Japanese tourists contribute $26 million to the NWT economy every year, or 30 per cent of all visitors to the NWT.
And now as Canada and the rest of the world settle in for what could be a lengthy war against terrorism, the onus lies on rebuilding an already battered tourism industry.
"Day in, day out, it's going to have an impact on the family sitting down for dinner deciding 'what are we going to do for winter, what are we going to do for summer?'" said Grindlay. "The longer the U.S. and the rest hammer at Afghanistan, the longer this (a depressed tourism market) is going to last."
While Grindlay said a specific strategy is still in the works, the one message that will probably curry favour is Canada's international image of being relatively benign and a safe country to visit.
Part of the plan may involve trying to convince nerve-racked Americans to do more travelling to Canada and the North by automobile.
Chris Johnston, general manager of Super 8 Motel, said the territorial government must do more to align itself to the tourism industry, even more so now that the country is at war.
"The impact of the highway toll, airline costs... When you can fly from Vancouver to Paris for the same cost as going from Edmonton to Yellowknife what would you do?"
