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Future visitors not concerned about fast food presence: BLLT

Future visitors to Banff will not be concerned with the presence of fast food chains or franchises in the resort town because they are urban and technologically savvy.

Future visitors to Banff will not be concerned with the presence of fast food chains or franchises in the resort town because they are urban and technologically savvy.

That’s according to Banff Lake Louise Tourism CEO Julie Canning, who made a presentation last week to the Land Use Bylaw working group.

Canning, who used to be a banker, detailed the current economic conditions that are most relevant to Banff as a tourist destination and told the group authenticity is not a significant factor for the future market of visitors to the town.

“Our core values as residents are not those of our customers,” she said. “We need to be clear; are we talking about visitors or residents, because each are great but different?

“Urban dwellers play differently, want different things and experience things differently than we do.”

Canning said urban dwellers visiting Banff are not looking to escape, slow down or for time out; they thrive on speed, choice and connectivity, especially new technology.

Canning was adamant Banff is not an urban setting and never will be. She said urbanization is a mega-trend with half the world’s population living in urban centres and close to 180,000 people moving into cities daily.

“How will this change the consumer arena?” she asked. “Firstly, urban consumers tend to be more daring, more liberal, more tolerant, more experienced, more prone to trying out new products and services.”

She said no one can say whether or not having a McDonald’s on Banff Avenue makes Banff less authentic, but tourists don’t notice it or think it’s a problem because they like choices.

“People used to urban settings, they probably don’t notice the golden arches, but we do.”

Canning said the top economic factor relevant for Banff is consumer confidence.

“We look at consumer confidence as an overall indicator of how tourism will do,” she said.

Pointing at the Conference Board of Canada’s index of consumer confidence up to July, 2011 she said while some gains have been made since the major drop in 2008 and the global economic crisis, the trend is not rebounding back to where it was before.

That pessimism about future job opportunities and belt-tightening due to rising energy food costs is not good for tourism as vacations are often seen as a luxury.

In fact, Canning said, Canadians planning vacations in Canada this winter is at an all time low of 15.4 per cent, down from 17.6 per cent last year.

“Domestic destinations for Canadians travellers are forecasted to be in more challenging times,” she said. “They are not feeling good, they are not feeling confident, they are not taking vacations.”

While federal stimulus money injected into the economy over the last several years helped, that money is drying up and Canning said the private sector is not ready to step up.

“That money is drying up and the private sector is not there to keep that push going.”

Add to that a strong Canadian dollar that affects inbound travel and Canning said there are major hurdles for the destination to deal with.

But these are not phenomenon exclusive to Banff, it is across Canada and a recent competitiveness panel also found the cost of Canadian tourism products has risen, reducing value for travellers.

That means tourists are spending more now for the exact same services and products that they received in the past for less.

Canning said consumers don’t care about increasing costs to businesses, they care about value.

“Overall, this is a fundamental structural challenge in tourism,” she said.

The working group has been tasked with an economic review out of three motions from Banff council.

The three motions from the July 18 council meeting directed an economic review of the proposal to reduce the number of permitted uses for grocery store and service station properties, the proposal to enact distinct regulations for formula fast food businesses and feedback on direct housing and parking fees.

Assessor Frank Watson was also invited to speak to the group.

He explained Banff takes an income approach to assessment, meaning the most important factor is how much a space is rented for.

“It is the space that is important, not the use,” he said.

A change to the permitted uses in the Land Use Bylaw would not directly affect assessment, he said, unless it affects the ability of that space to be rented.

If rental income decreases, the assessment decreases for commercial properties as does the amount of taxes collected. If fewer taxes are collected commercially, the burden can then shift to residential ratepayers.

Watson said the assessment process ties residential taxation to successful commercial enterprise.

In his experience, he said, fast food chains often own their own property or are located in spaces with higher rental rates because those are a challenge for smaller businesses to pay.

“There is no doubt a mom and pop business would have a hard time paying $80 a square foot, but a chain would be able to spread that across it’s entire business,” he said.


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