Thursday, August 20, 2015

Tourism Prince Rupert looks to chart a stakeholder driven course for the future

Tourism Prince Rupert's Scott Farwell
provided an overview of proposed
changes to the Tourism organization
Tourism Prince Rupert outlined their plans to revise the organizations constitution moving forward, looking to shift from a membership driven focus to one that engages a number of stakeholders in the tourism sector in the region.

Tourism Prince Rupert's Chair Scott Farwell, provided the presentation to council offering up some background on the decision to make the shift and what impact it may have on tourism decisions into the future.

Mr. Farwell noted that one of the changes would be the reduction in number of the members of the Board of Directors, with the intention ahead to reduce the number by two members fixing the number at seven.

He also noted that they were changing the nature of the language around appointments from the City of Prince Rupert to the board, noting that it dates back to the days of budget funding from the City of 200,000 dollars or more, while this year the grant in aid for Tourism from the city was 31,500 dollars.

He posed an observation to Council, asking if sitting on the board was the best use of time for Council members considering the important issues that Council is dealing with at this time.

Councillor Barry Cunningham
had a number of questions for
Tourism Prince Rupert's Scott Farwell
at Monday night's council session
Councillor Barry Cunningham asked some questions related to what Tourism Prince Rupert is looking for when it comes to voting rights and stakeholder payments.

He also took note of the funding amount noted from Tourism Prince Rupert, reminding Mr. Farwell that the funding provided by the City this year, was what had been requested by the Tourism organization.

Councillor Cunningham also had some concerns over the prospect of reducing involvement of the City of Prince Rupert with the Tourism organization, noting that he did not have any problems with the time required in his case for participation with the organization.

Adding that he wold like to see more meetings held by Tourism Prince Rupert, seeking out more input from the community regarding some of their proposed changes.

"I consider Tourism a very large part of this city and I don't consider it a waste of my time going to your meetings at all, it's just that I think we should have more regular meetings, I would like to see TPR should have meeting three, four or five times a year. in this new constitution you have that in there but it's a board meeting, but I would like to see a General meeting called more often" -- Councillor Barry Cunningham seeking more not less input on Tourism matters in the community

He also sought out clarification on the nature of the proposed constitutional changes towards the stakeholder concepts and whether they had been given a legal review.

On that theme Mr. Farwell noted that the proposed shift in focus was presented by Northern BC tourism, which uses the same bylaws for its operations, adding that much what has been proposed now is in place with Smithers tourism.

Mayor Brain noted that there is a lot for the City to review the changes before they have any comments to pass along.

Councillor Randhawa asked for an update on the status of the current tourism season, Mr. Farwell noted that there appears to be a significant increase in those that are visiting the new visitor centre in the Atlin Terminal.

He believes that overall tourism is on par with last year which was the strongest year since 2006.

You can review the full presentation from the City's Video Archive, it starts at 28 minutes and continues through until the 41 minute mark .







You can learn more about the work of Tourism Prince Rupert from their website.

Further background on the topic of Tourism on the North Coast can be reviewed here.

 For more items related to City council discussions see our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review

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