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NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Despite a Royal Visit, the wildly successful debut of Yellowknife-based TV drama Arctic Air, and the continued success of reality shows Ice Road Truckers and Ice Pilots NWT - the number of visitors to the territory fell slightly last season, according to NWT Tourism figures.

Northern Frontier Visitors Centre tourism counsellor Matthew Miller displays the tourism centre's specials board, an initiative started last year which NWT Tourism executive director Brian Desjardins says is one of the reasons why visitor spending went up in the last season, although total visitation numbers went down. - Thandiwe Vela/NNSL photo

Aurora viewing, general touring, hunting, and outdoor adventure numbers were up in the 2011/12 season, but the number of visitors who came for fishing, visiting friends and relatives, and business travel went down - bringing total visitor numbers to 64,380, down from 65, 240 in the 2010/11 season.

NWT Tourism, the organization tasked by the GNWT with marketing the territory around the world, has stretched its funding from the government, which has been unchanged for the past five years, according to executive director Brian Desjardins. Amid cuts in flights to Yellowknife, visitation numbers have avoided dropping drastically due to the exposure the territory has garnered through the hit reality television shows and the visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge last year, he said.

"We really don't see the visitation numbers as being down. We see it actually as being relatively unchanged from past years. I mean, it's down, but it's quite minimal, so we actually see it as unchanged," Desjardins said. "We believe the numbers haven't severely deteriorated because of a lot of things that have been happening for us that are not from direct spending and direct marketing spending. Things like the reality shows - Ice Pilots NWT, Ice Road Truckers, CBC's most successful drama series Arctic Air. Also, we can't forget what William and Kate's visit did for us," Desjardins added, comparing the royal visit to "winning the lottery."

"They put the NWT on the map for many people around the world previously unfamiliar with Canada’s North. All those things that didn't require NWT Tourism to spend marketing dollars we believe have kept visitation relatively the same or close to the previous year."

While total visitor numbers fell, visitor spending increased by about $1.3 million, to $99.5 million from $98.2 million in 2010/11.

The increase in visitor spending is due to tourism operators offering a wider variety of products to the visitors that come North, Desjardins said.

"If you look at the breakdown, it's because there was more aurora viewing, fishing (spending) was up, general touring was up, and we believe that visitor spending has gone up because of the ability of our tour operators, our tourism industry, to adjust and to develop and diversify their products," he said.

The number of visitors whose main purpose of travel was aurora viewing jumped to 7,400 last season, compared to 6,800 the year before.

The number of visitors whose main purpose of travel was fishing fell to 4,700 from 5,000, but fishing spending increased by more than $1 million, to $12.9 million, from $11.8 million.

Visitors who may not have come North to fish have been taking advantage of spur-of-the-moment offerings from the Northern Frontier Visitors Centre's specials board, which allows member operators to post daily specials for last-minute, half-day, and full-day guided tours, fishing tours, and other offerings at a discounted price, Desjardins said.

Elijah Forget, senior tourism counsellor at the visitors centre, said the specials board is the first thing visitors see when they enter the downtown centre, and operators have been successfully "incentivizing" people to take advantage of discounted day trips, when they have space.

"It's the first thing people check in the morning when they come in," Forget said about the specials board, which was introduced last season. "If (the operators) give us the tour specials we're more likely to sell them, it works. Visitors are taking advantage."

While Air Canada discontinued its Vancouver-Yellowknife flight last winter - taking away some capacity for passengers to travel to the NWT, plans for the airline to increase passenger plane capacity to Yellowknife this season will help with the capacity issue, Desjardins said.

NWT Tourism is also seeking a $1.2 million increase in core marketing dollars from the GNWT from its current $1.6 million operating budget.

"We believe that in order for us to be competitive in the marketplace, we need to expand our current marketing activities in our markets which include domestic Canada, Japan, and Europe, in order to bring our numbers up," Desjardins said.

The agency is also projecting increased visitation numbers this season, following the NASA scientists selection of Yellowknife for the name of its space probe landing site on Mars earlier this year, and the approaching Solar Maximum, which will allow visitors to experience increasing intensity and frequency of the Northern lights.

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