Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services

Inuvik (July 30/01) - Despite temperamental temperatures, it's shaping up to be a banner season in Inuvik for tourism and conventions.

Cold, wet temperatures in early July gave way to searing heat in the middle of the month, before turning damp again as visitors drove, hiked, and flew in from across Canada and beyond.

The town has been marketing itself as a tourist and convention mecca. In the wake of an oil and gas boom, combined with the continued success of the Great Northern Arts Festival, the strategy seems to be paying dividends.

"From my angle and from the amount of calls, I'm probably getting three times the amount of calls as last year," said Brian Desjardins, Inuvik's tourism and fundraising coordinator.

The town pools some of its tourism budget with the Territorial government and the Inuvialuit Development Corporation's tourism arm.

"There's a lot of sharing costs with the municipality, Inuvialuit Tourism, and RWED," said Desjardins. The town also has forged an alliance with Destination Arctic, a Toronto-based company which bills itself as a, "one stop corporate meeting and incentive travel provider specializing in Canada's arctic."

Desjardins says that western Europe and Asia are expressing an interest in coming the Delta.

"Personally, I'm getting a lot more inquiries from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and quite a lot of Japanese," he said.

Mackenzie Delta Hotel Group president Vince Brown says it's been an "excellent" season for his organization, which runs the Eskimo Inn, Finto Motor Inn, and the Mackenzie Hotel. However, it's not all attributable to tourism.

"It's partly oil and gas, partly an increase in conference interest," said Brown. Last June's Petroleum Expo booked every single hotel and bed and breakfast room in town. A floating camp normally used for oil and gas exploration had to be barged in to accommodate the overflow.