NUNAVUT
Nunavut Tourism chief executive officer Colleen Dupuis was there when the organization got its start, and since taking over as CEO in 2009, has made great strides to bring the best of Nunavut to the world's attention.
Nunavut Tourism's Colleen Dupuis, who was in the room when the organization was first discussed in 1995, is retiring after six years as CEO. - Casey Lessard/NNSL photo |
Dupuis announced at the end of this month's Tourism in Nunavut conference that she will be retiring in September.
"There are two of us in the room - David Monteith and I - that were in the room when Nunavut Tourism was formed or thought about in 1995," she said, announcing her intentions March 12. "That makes it sound like a long time ago. I feel I'm leaving at a time when it's in a really good position, and I'm sure it will be great."
Nunavut Tourism board of directors chair Max Johnson said Dupuis will "leave an enormous gap" in the organization.
"After delivering Nunavut Tourism from a dysfunctional organization on the brink of collapse and disaster, working for years in bringing the organization into a position of respect, not only with our funders but with out partners, and people who want to be associated," Johnson said, "she has brought the organization to the brink of success."
Dupuis said her proudest moment was getting the Nunavut Tourism Strategy passed by legislators.
"That's a major accomplishment," she said. "Tourism was the last sector to have a strategy, so getting that through the legislature in May 2013 was one. We also have a really good team and some of the things we've pulled off - like Canada AM and two tourism conferences, and some things planned this summer - the organization will continue to do great things."
The toughest part of promoting Nunavut tourism is having something to promote, Economic Development and Transportation Minister Monica Ell said. The government is working to support product development.
"Few travel destinations in the world can equal the diversity, excitement and wonder of our beautiful territory," Ell said. "The combination of our landscape, people, culture and attractions provide an experience that is hard to match.
"We are working with communities to identify the products that can be marketed effectively. Those products likely to attract the greatest number of tourists and the best revenue generating potential will be recommended to tourism business operators."
"We're concentrating on the markets where we'll be able to see and deliver a quality product that will give visitors a really good experience and good word of mouth so they'll encourage other people to come back," Dupuis said.
The CEO's judgement in this regard was called into question in 2013 when she spent $69,700 to appear on an American cable TV show filmed in Florida, starring Alan Thicke and targeting women. This was despite warnings from top bureaucrats that it would be wasted money and that it went against Nunavut Tourism's business plan, Nunavut News/North reported last year.
"It contradicts the U.S.'s current Discover America campaign ... that is spending millions and millions and millions to get Americans to travel within their own borders," Nunavut's director of communications at the time, Pam Coulter, wrote to Karen Kabloona, then director of tourism and cultural industries for Economic Development and Transportation, which was responsible for Nunavut Tourism, in an e-mail obtained through an Access to Information and Protection of Privacy request.
Kabloona noted that the network targeted young moms who couldn't afford to travel to Nunavut, pointing to Nunavut Tourism's mission to target "wealthy, Canadians, mostly men."
She also noted that reallocating a budget surplus, which Dupuis wanted to use for to the trip, for marketing purposes was not part of Nunavut Tourism's business plan.
"If it had been, then they would have applied for SIP (strategic investments program), like everyone else," she wrote.
Dupuis pitched the project to assistant deputy minister Paul Suvega but, after getting no answer to her request, she took his lack of response as permission. Suvega OK'd the trip two days after the trip started.
Despite the criticism, Nunavut Tourism under Dupuis's watch grew its journalist program, which provides trips to journalists whose target audiences are very likely to visit a featured outfitter or destination and also had hits with Canada AM and The Amazing Race.
Efforts to bring The Amazing Race North earned the three territories' marketing organizations the Tourism Industry Association of Canada's Marketing Campaign of the Year award in November.
These types of promotions aren't cheap - Canada AM cost Nunavut $233,000 - but the organization has stood by the trips as good investments. Most are focused on the domestic market, which makes up "85 to 90 per cent" of Nunavut's tourism numbers.
In the end, Dupuis can leave knowing legislators are still talking about the Tourism Strategy, which she wants to be her legacy.
"The Tourism Strategy is our guiding document," Ell told those at the tourism conference, "and we are making great strides in implementing the five-year plan."
With that, and after promoting the territory this summer at the Pan Am Games and other events, Dupuis can retire with her husband, David Bergman, in Trenton, Ont., knowing she will not be forgotten.
