His letter to the editor defending tourism spending in the province isn't online, but let's have a look at Steve Kent's explanation (Amended: by request, we've removed the Kent letter that appeared in the Sunday Telegram. It isn't available online.) of why the current administration's tourism spending is right on.
First, says Kent, we must look at all the awards the marketing campaign has won. "The number of awards that the campaign has received to date is a strong indication that it is drawing positive attention to the province."
Well, the campaign has won awards for its creative merit but that doesn't mean that it has had an impact on tourism traffic.
In that context, Kent mentions the province's logo, which, it should be noted be refers to as a "brand signature." That's industry speak for what they used to call a logo but Danny Williams thought was a brand.
Also, in November the province's brand signature won a prestigious silver award from the London International Advertising Awards. The short animated television spot featuring the province's new logo won a silver statue in the television category. It was also named a finalist in the animation category.
Well, Bond Papers has already explained that Kent's claim is false. Completely, totally utterly false. The logo didn't win the award. The video won the award. But even if it was true, as with the awards won by the campaign it's also irrelevant.
The provincial government spends tourism advertising money to bring new people to the province, not help ad agencies fill up the "I Love Me" cabinets.
Second, Kent mentions a bunch of references to the province by prominent travel publications. All good stuff, of course, but its the bums in airplane seats and feet on the ground that counts.
Third - measured by number of paragraphs - and after all that, that's when we get to the actual tourism stats which, oddly enough, don't figure prominently in a letter from cabinet-minister-wannabe trying to score points with his team.
In the past four years, non-resident visitors to this province have increased by about 15 per cent, contributing approximately $365 million annually to the provincial coffers. The total resident and non-resident tourism industry contributes about $840 million to the provincial economy each year.
Bond Papers has also torn that little piece of misleading information to shreds as well back in December:
The relative proportion of overall spending by locals has actually grown in the four years of the New Approach to tourism much faster than visitor spending. In a May 2004 statement to the legislature, former tourism minister and current Humber Valley resort general manager noted that visitors generated approximately $300 million in spending in 2003 out of total tourism spending in the province of $620 million.
In other words, over the four years from 2003 to 2006, overall "tourism" spending increased by $200 million but only $64 million - 32% - of that new spending was related to visitors. In the meantime, the tourism advertising budget - supposedly aimed at bring new dollars into the economy through increased visitation- has increased from $6.0 million to $11.0 million.
Get it? For all the money Kent is proud of spending, it really hasn't been all that successful at attracting people from outside the province to come here. That's what most of us would expect a tourism campaign to do. By far and away, the growth in tourism revenue in the province has come from people staying home, not from some massive increase - or even a reasonable increase - in new faces.
Nope.
The provincial government has doubled the advertising budget and succeeded in getting more people to stay home.
There's a successful tourism strategy for you.
No wonder Kent didn't say much about it.
Reading Kent's letter is like reading a redraft of the Parrot Shop sketch: "beautiful plumage, squire."
Nice.
But entirely irrelevant.
-srbp-