Business

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Travel industry about to heat up

City hosts marketplace for international tour operators

By: Martin Cash

Posted: 05/12/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

The Winnipeg Convention Centre was transformed into a Canadian tourism destination supermarket this week, attracting about 300 international tourism buyers to pick and choose from polar bear excursions in Churchill to Rocky Mountain getaways.

In addition to the buyers, there were also about 900 tourism property operators in town filling most of the downtown hotels for the three-day marketplace. The event will make a solid contribution to Manitoba Homecoming 2010's goals to increase person visits to the province by 50,000 this year and incremental spending by $20 million.

Not surprisingly, tourism spending was down everywhere last year, although Manitoba's declined half as much as the Canadian rate.

But business is picking up this year.

"We are very optimistic, considering what's already on the books, that we will have a healthy year in 2010," said Hubert Mesman, president and CEO of Travel Manitoba. "Things like this push incremental traffic. We think that will make a difference."

The Conference Board of Canada is forecasting tourism spending growth in Manitoba this year of about 2.3 per cent (after a two per cent decline last year versus a 5.7 per cent decline nationally in 2009).

This year was Winnipeg's turn to host the Canadian tourism industry's annual marketplace, called Rendez-vous Canada, which ends today.

A strong contingent of American, European and Asian tour operators shopped the Canadian properties they will then go back to their home countries to sell. But the Canadian industry feels like it's on its heels. David Goldstein, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, said Canada is losing its competitive edge. "Other sectors have done a better job articulating their benefits to the economy," he said.

For instance, the $71-billion Canadian tourism industry is as big as fisheries, forestry and agriculture combined.

And since the tourism industry depends so much on public sector infrastructure -- like national parks and transportation infrastructure to move tourists around -- public sector funding is required to make it work.

In addition to infrastructure and spending on assets, Goldstein said he believes the federal government in particular needs to spend more on promotion. For example, the city of Las Vegas spends more than three times as much on tourism promotion as the Canadian federal government.

But Doreen Booth, sales and marketing co-ordinator for Churchill Wild, said there was good interest in her three eco-tourism lodges along Hudson Bay at Rendez-vous Canada and they will be fully booked for this year's summer and fall season.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Manitoba's tourism industry

$1.16 billion

tourism industry revenue for 2009

2.75

per cent of provincial GDP

5,300

number of tourism businesses

50,000

full- and part-time employment

$480 million

export revenue generated

$550 million

tax revenues generated

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 12, 2010 B6

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