Ty Speer has little time to be introspective.
His first full summer as CEO of Tourism Vancouver turned out to be one of the busiest tourist seasons that the city has ever seen, putting Speer on track to oversee substantially more revenue flowing in than did previous CEO Rick Antonson, who left in mid-2014 to write travel books.
Speer is projecting that his tourism marketer will generate $21.8 million in 2016 – up almost 30% compared with this year.
That rise is almost exclusively because he and other executives were able to persuade the provincial government to allow them to hike the tax on Vancouver hotel rooms in September to 3% from 2%.
That tax generates about 90% of Tourism Vancouver’s revenue.
With so much going on, it’s no surprise that Speer was too busy to notice the occasion of his 20th anniversary as a U.S. expatriate in October.
“I forgot about it,” the Atlanta native said while sitting at a table in his corner office, which overlooks the Vancouver Convention Centre and the North Shore mountains. “You live your life day by day and don’t tend to think too much about that kind of thing, but every so often I’m reminded that I’ve been gone quite a while.”
Not only are international visitor counts surging but Speer and his 60 staff are embarking on a range of new projects.
Amid many projects on the go is a key inititative to update the tourism marketer’s promotional materials to make them better suited for viewing on smartphones.
His focus is not only to have digital marketing compatible with the right platform but also to have strong content. That means that not only is Tourism Vancouver concerned with having a vast catalogue of glamorous, high-resolution photos, but it also now produces promotional blogs, such as InsideVancouver.ca, which take a relatively low-key marketing approach, discreetly playing down their origin as Tourism Vancouver properties.
Then comes widening distribution networks for content through partnerships, which are sometimes forged at international trade shows.
New revenue will help pay for this continuing work as well as joint initiatives with Destination British Columbia and the newly named Destination Canada, formerly the Canadian Tourism Commission.
It may also help Tourism Vancouver slow down its rapidly rising debt, which now stands at about $111 million.
The tourism marketer went into debt in 2008 as a result of its $90 million commitment to help build the Vancouver Convention Centre. Instead of making large debt payments, it worked out a deal to make smaller payments and earmark money to raise interest in conventions.
The result is that Speer does not expect Tourism Vancouver to pay off the debt until the latter half of the century.
Speer’s first experience overseeing budgets was as a fresh-faced 22-year-old who moved to Washington, D.C., to work on a political campaign.
It was 1988 and the Duke University graduate, who had a history degree, was inspired by George Herbert Walker Bush, the Republican candidate in that year’s U.S. presidential election.
Speer volunteered his time to do what he calls the “non-political” work of ensuring that the campaign’s spending followed federal election rules. He impressed his superiors enough that he won a short-term paid job to do similar tasks to wind down the campaign following Bush’s victory.
It was his first of many jobs that had a defined end date.
Later jobs in Australia, England and Scotland were connected with either the Olympic Games or the Commonwealth Games.
Does he miss working for organizations that by nature are temporary and work to a crescendo? After all, Tourism Vancouver intends to be around for many decades, if not longer.
“I enjoy the pressure, and there is probably greater pressure because of the fixed deadlines,” Speer said. “But I’ve made a very conscious decision to get into what you might call a normal annual-cycle business. I wanted to move out of temporary businesses into an enduring business because I really get to build for the long term.”
Those who know him say his background is an asset.
Destination British Columbia CEO Marsha Walden said Speer’s international experience gives him valuable insight for leading campaigns on “the global battlefield on which tourism competes.”
“With such an extensive background in hosting major international events, I think he’ll add even more success to Vancouver’s impressive track record in attracting conferences and events from around the world,” Walden said.
Speer said there are strong parallels between working for international athletics tournaments and working for a destination tourism marketer.
“What is very similar is that I’m a sales and marketing person,” he said. “Getting your sales and marketing right is the same, or as important, when working in Melbourne, selling a [Commonwealth] Games, as it is working in Vancouver, selling a destination. The basics are critical to get right in terms of your brand and your proposition and knowing who your audience is. Then you make something really compelling for your audience.”
Speer and his wife, Bel Mulligan, spend as much time as possible with their 14-month-old Canadian-born daughter, Ruby. The couple put Ruby in a backpack-like carrying contraption and hike off into the mountains behind their West Vancouver home.
“You chuck her in and she’s laughing away looking at birds and trees,” he said. “Kids are so interested in things. They just sponge everything up.”
Ruby may just be enough of a distraction to keep Speer from reflecting on his next significant life milestone: turning 50 years old in February. •
