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Yellowknife as NWT hub
New tourism exec sees synergy potential

Walter Strong
Northern News Services
Published Tuesday, May 20, 2014

SOMBA K’E/YELLOWKNIFE
There's a new face leading tourism promotion in the Northwest Territories.

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A little over a month ago, Cathie Bolstad became NWT Tourism's executive director. Bolstad is looking to develop synergies between diverse NWT communities and tourism operators, without overlooking the opportunities Yellowknife provides as a hub for visitors. - Walter Strong/NNSL photo

On April 15, Cathie Bolstad became NWT Tourism’s new executive director.

Bolstad comes into the job after 10 years with De Beers Canada as director of external and corporate affairs, and sees a synergy between Yellowknife as territorial hub and a thriving NWT tourism industry.

There are two things anyone interested in the future of NWT tourism needs to know. Visitor demographics are shifting and Yellowknife is the hub for travel to the territory,

But getting there won’t happen on its own, Bolstad said. The NWT isn’t alone in developing its tourism brand, and we face stiff competition from neighbouring jurisdictions.

In particular, the Yukon is the NWT’s main competitor when it comes to attracting and retaining tourist dollars.

“Our competition in the North is the Yukon,” Bolstad said. “They’ve got roads that go straight up to Alaska, so they’ve got that American draw.”

Not only does Yellowknife lack an international airport like in Whitehorse, but compared to the Yukon, the NWT is road challenged. Once a visitor arrives in Yellowknife, it’s expensive to make it out to other regions of the territory with flying usually the only option.

“For the North, roads are going to be critical for everything,” Bolstad said. “If you compare us to the Yukon, who have a very significant tourism industry, roads play a very important part of their tourism strategy.”

Getting people to Yellowknife depends a lot on what they can do once they’re here.

Traditional draws, like hunting and fishing face challenges in the NWT, with the ongoing ban on the caribou hunt and shifting demographics in the fishing industry.

Not only was the hunt important to hunting guides and outfitters, it represented a significant cash infusion per hunter, something difficult to replace on a per capita visit by any other visitors, even the thriving aurora tourist market.

“Aurora viewing tourists spend big bucks to get here - $3,000 to $5,000 - but they don’t necessarily spend as much as hunters while here,” Bolstad said.

Where the average aurora tourist might spend around $1,500 per visit once here, Bolstad said, a hunter might have spent up to $30,000.

But the challenge here, as Bolstad sees it, isn’t to advocate for or against the ban on the caribou hunt, or any other environmental or conservation challenge the territory might face, but to work with tourism operators in whatever context they find themselves in.

“Our role as a destination marketing organization is to help our operators who live in a dynamic shifting economy to navigate their way through tough times, whether it's a fishing industry facing a decline, or hunting outfitters who face conservation restrictions,” Bolstad said.

As a hub for the territory, Yellowknife’s tourism revenue is tied to the territory’s fortunes. As Bolstad sees it, the city’s tourism success depends, to a large degree, on the options available to travellers once they arrive. Especially if we want to attract repeat visits.

Travellers are definitely arriving, Bolstad said.

The most recent statistics available to NWT Tourism show 76,400 visitors coming into the territory over 2012/13, infusing more than $106 million into the economy while here.

In particular, the Chinese tourism market is showing strong growth.

“In the first quarter of last year, we had 264 Chinese visitors to the Northern Frontiers Visitor Centre (in Yellowknife),” Bolstad said. “This year we had 1,227 in the first quarter. That’s almost five times the visitors in one year.”

“We’ve begun to work in the Chinese market. We’re going to do additional research and planning this year to better understand what an increase in that market can mean.”

A rapid increase in visitor numbers can work against the city if it hasn’t developed the resources to provide the kind of experience visitors expect.

“We are getting lots of visitors, but how do we manage that as a community?” Bolstad asked. “How do we keep them coming back?”

If the rest of the territory isn’t a strong draw for arrivals, repeat visits become more difficult to inspire.

“We don’t want to be Yellowknife-centred,” Bolstad said. “But we are the first point of check-in. We want visitors to stay in the region longer, and get them out to other regions.”

Yellowknife could also benefit from plans Bolstad has to work on developing a convention bureau or function in cooperation with GNWT department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment.

“We’re working with (the department) on a two-year convention bureau project,” Bolstad said. “This isn’t going to be a (physical) building, but a project to promote the NWT as a great place to bring meetings and conventions.”

Right now, municipalities or regional tourism boards look after developing and hosting convention opportunities, but NWT Tourism has heard back from members that the task is difficult to manage. “We don’t have a coordinator to pull together resources to form a package to meet requests for proposals,” Bolstad said. “We want to be better at winning conference bids.”

Behind the scenes, tourism boards and municipalities vie for annual conventions in the same way contractors bid on construction projects.

Organizations tender conferences or meetings, and then consider proposals as they come in.

“We have our sales agents at meeting, convention and incentive trade shows,” Bolstad said. “But we don’t have a mechanism in place in the NWT to say, OK, we have a lead that’s come in, let’s coordinate resources. That’s a project we’re taking on this year.”

Getting tourists to pick Yellowknife and the NWT means not only understanding what travellers are looking for when they look to the North, but understanding - and delivering - what they expect when they arrive.

“We can’t over-sell and under-deliver,” Bolstad said. “Customer service is paramount. We want people to spread the word about the NWT.”

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