Tourism – it’s what this Valley is all about.
Rarely do business discussions in the Bow Valley not revolve around tourism, untold man-hours and millions of dollars are invested in tourism and there is a general impression that tourism is what makes this little part of the world go round.
The thing is, it’s time to view tourism, which is what many believe generally fills the coffers of businesses locally, with a larger, outside the box, broader view.
Certainly, and we agree with them, the good people at the Destination Marketing Fund (DMF) believe thoughts of what tourism needs to go beyond just the number of accommodation units in town.
Tourism is much more than people checking into hotels and motels for a given number of nights. In fact, if you let your mind wander a bit further afield when thinking of tourism, it’s not hard to picture tourism affecting virtually every business and resident of this valley.
In keeping one’s mind open as to what constitutes tourism, it’s not difficult to imagine that as you, a Bow Valley citizen, reads this, a tourist may be reading it as well – possibly while in line at a grocery store, maybe sipping a latte at a coffee shop, maybe while waiting for their RV’s flat tire to be fixed, even (hopefully not) waiting in a dental office for an emergency root canal.
In the end, when you think outside the box, tourism-wise, is there much difference between dollars spent to book accommodation or buy a replacement bike chain for a Nordic Centre race? Between dollars spent at a hotel or to purchase a load of groceries to haul to a campsite? Is there much difference, tourism-wise, between paying a few hundred dollars to take home a sculpture purchased in a gallery or a weekend in a time-share?
Not really; maybe in scale.
All of the above is why it’s understandable that DMF is tired of more or less single-handedly keeping Canmore Business & Tourism running.
When a volunteer group of owners or managers of accommodation properties takes it upon itself to institute a three per cent resort fee levy on its rooms to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into CBT (Page 1), money which is then poured into attracting tourists to the entire area, it’s understandable that, after a while, it would like to see its efforts matched by other operations in the community.
Money generated by DMF and spent by CBT is used to attract visitors to Canmore, yes, but not only to the properties of members. The money raised goes into generally increasing tourism, which generally is good for everybody.
Hey, when it comes right down to it, DMF should have been receiving mayor’s volunteer awards for community service over the past few years.
Tourism is what Canmore and the Bow Valley has going for it and everyone needs to support it. The heady days of selling second homes, or anything else a developer built, has cooled off. Canmore is not a mill, mining, oil or big agriculture town. We haven’t heard of any tax holidays being offered to attract light or heavy industry.
Rather than looking at ways to expand the three per cent resort levy fee to all accommodation properties, it might be worthwhile to explore the introduction of a lesser levy that virtually every business in town would pay into, thereby reducing the effect on any one segment of the business community – much like the old saying, “Many hands make light work.”
After all, galleries, coffee shops, clothing stores, bike and ski shops, equipment rental shops, electronics stores, bars, restaurants all have a stake in ensuring that tourists continue to visit.
