Premier Christy Clark is set to reverse former premier Gordon Campbell’s controversial decision to create a tourism marketing body within the government’s tourism ministry rather than keep Tourism BC as an industry-led Crown corporation.
Industry insiders at the time criticized the move because it put control in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats instead of industry business owners.
Jobs Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell told Business in Vancouver that the government plans to recreate a stand-alone tourism marketing organization next month with an established formula for government funding and an industry board to direct marketing efforts.
“You will see an entity that will be a Crown corporation of some kind. I don’t know that people felt [Tourism BC] was accountable back to the taxpayer in the way that it should be.”
But New Democratic Party tourism critic Spencer Chandra Herbert said it was “spin” to avoid admitting that the government had made a mistake. “Tourism BC was as accountable to taxpayers as you could get. They had to submit a plan and letter of expectations to the minister every year. The minister had to approve it.”
Herbert has been calling for Tourism BC’s reinstatement since the Liberals eliminated the Crown corporation in August 2009.
He remains skeptical of how industry-led the future Tourism BC will be.
Bell told a Vancouver Board of Trade audience August 14 that he will announce in early September an interim board for the future Tourism BC that will include “names that many of us could only dream of.”
He later announced five new directors on BC Pavilion Corp.’s (PavCo) 11-member board:
•former Vancouver councillor Suzanne Anton;
•Grouse Mountain Resorts owner Stuart McLaughlin;
•Big White Ski Resort and Silver Star resort senior vice-president Michael Ballingall;
•former Victoria mayor Alan Lowe; and
•former Prince George councillor Don Zurowski.
Bell’s former deputy minister, Dana Hayden, left his ministry July 30 to be interim CEO at PavCo.
With the structure of the future Tourism BC yet to be announced, there is speculation that the organization will have closer links with PavCo. PavCo has overseen recent large construction projects such as the new Vancouver Convention Centre and the BC Place stadium renovation.
The Crown corporation that owns convention venues has always had a mandate to market B.C. for international conventions. Bell, however, has stressed to Hayden that he wants PavCo to shift from being a builder to being a marketer by promoting regional convention centres on Vancouver Island and in northern B.C. and the Thompson-Okanagan.
“Conventions are a big driver for tourism so there [have] to be linkages between PavCo and Tourism BC,” Herbert said.
But others in the know say Herbert is barking up the wrong tree.Dave Butler, who heads sustainability operations at Canadian Mountain Holidays heli-skiing operation, also chairs Tourism Industry Association of B.C.’s provincial destination marketing task force, which advised Bell on how to restructure Tourism BC. “People making the link between PavCo and Tourism BC are putting two and two together and getting five,” he said. •
