The summer tourist season is usually the focus of Canmore’s destination marketing organization and even more so this year due to June’s floods.
The quick turnaround after the devastating incident by Canmore Business and Tourism to let Albertans know their back yard is still open saw significant results with a 91 per cent occupancy rate in the community’s hotel rooms during the month of August.
The record-breaking visitation and bounce back of the tourism economy was celebrated at the organization’s annual general meeting at the end of September.
Chair Dan DeSantis said the ability to partner quickly with Travel Alberta after the flood came out of CBT’s work in collaborating with the provincial organization and gaining interest in the region at that level.
“We continue to be invited and be at places we haven’t been and we continue to take advantage of those opportunities to spread the word about Canmore-Kananaskis,” DeSantis said. “This gets done through the efforts of a very talented team of people and we have been able to attract what I would suggest, in my opinion, the best team of individuals in Alberta working for us in our organization.”
But it wasn’t just the summer months during which CBT staff have been hard at work. President and CEO Andrew Nickerson presented the organization’s three-year strategic plan at the AGM as well, detailing milestones of 2012 and the progress towards strategic goals in 2013.
In 2012, Canmore-Kananaskis saw a 15.9 per cent increase in hotel occupancy over 2011, which means an additional 62,000 room nights and $34 million in direct economic growth. There was also a 7.5 per cent increase in the average daily rate, which is the revenue brought in by hotels divided by the number of rooms sold, and 24.6 per cent increase in revenue per available room compared to 2011.
“We are seen as an area of growth and an area that attracts investment – this is huge for us going forward and we really couldn’t be in a more exciting place,” Nickerson said, noting while CBT has 180 members, there are 1,200 registered in Canmore.
The organization’s audited financial statements also showed improvements in the organization.
With a $162,061 deficit at year-end of 2011, by the end of 2012 the net assets were $250,207 – a significant improvement noted by DeSantis.
“I was the one who had to stand up here and tell you that three AGMs ago; we have been fiscally responsible, yet also ensuring what we are doing is going to bring business to the area and we will continue to do that moving forward,” he said.
Also operating as Tourism Canmore Kananaskis, CBT’s revenues have increased to $1.75 million in 2012.
“We are not the biggest budget in the Rockies, but we have been able to get funding through different sources,” DeSantis said. “A lot of that has to do with continuing to get hotels into the Destination Marketing Fund (DMF), but also in understanding how we can partner and collaborate with Travel Alberta and trying to ensure where there is an opportunity, and we feel there is a good return on investment, we are there.
“The board is looking at this stage to build the reserve fund, we want to be in a position where we have funding in case of anything that may occur, so now we turn our energies and our efforts to ensure we are still marketing and doing exactly what we need to do, but gradually putting a little bit of money away so that we don’t run into any scenarios where we are in trouble.”
The DMF is comprised of hotels in Canmore and Kananaskis that voluntarily contribute a three per cent fee charged per room to the fund and then disperse it for destination marketing and events.
“We simply cannot underestimate what the DMF contribution has done for us; we would not exist as an organization without them, that is a simple fact,” Nickerson said, adding it was support from the DMF that helped CBT get out of a deficit position as fast as it did.
