Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

INUVIK (May 15/98) - Tourism operators in the Mackenzie Delta are going to have more of a presence on the Internet in the coming years to attract visitors here.

And customer service in stores and businesses needs to be improved if the area is going to get visitors to enjoy their stay here and come back again, a major workshop held in Inuvik last week decided.

"The Internet came up more than once," said Rob Cook, president of the Western Arctic Trade and Tourism Association, which organized the workshop that attracted more than 50 people.

"It does two things -- it lets us get information out to people and it allows us to keep connected to one another...we would like to see every tourism operator in the region have at least an e-mail address in a couple of year."

With Ardicom currently in the process of wiring small communities that have never had Internet access before into the worldwide communication network, business owners will have an opportunity to promote themselves and stay in touch with customers and other operators, he said.

The workshop brought in tourism operators and business owners from around the region, from guest houses in Sachs Harbour to charter boat owners from Tuk and Aklavik, to Inuvik for a session on how to encourage and promote tourism in the area.

More than 20 recommendations came out of the workshop, and those recommendations will be pursued by the tourism association and the individual operators.

Cook says the area of customer service also needs to be developed, and a list of 10 things businesses can do to keep customers happy will be circulated in the association's next newsletter, which goes to all businesses in the Delta.

"Customer service was one of the other big things," he said.

"It's one thing to get the tourists here but it's another to keep them happy during their stay, and customer service was seen as one of the areas that we had to concentrate on."