Golden Raven Experience Produces Results
Saturday, April 20, 2013 @ 3:53 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The Regional District of Fraser Fort George is achieving success with it’s “Golden Raven” marketing plan to promote a number of heritage or cultural sights.
The Regional District funds eight such sites, and saw a 16.5% increase in the number of visits to those sites in 2012. The numbers would have been higher, but last year’s labour dispute with the teachers meant many visits by school children were cancelled.
The Visitors’ centres also saw increases:
Prince George +17%
Mackenzie +17%
McBride +6%
Valemount +13%
The Regional District provides $1.608 million dollars in funding for the various cultural or heritage sites, which is about half the $3.467 million in total operating costs for the attractions .
This should be a busy year for the Golden Raven experience, as there is the 30th anniversary of the Railway and Forestry Museum, the $100th anniversary of Mount Robson Park, 100th anniversary of McBride being Grand Trunk Rail Divisional point , and the $150th anniversary of the arrival of John Giscome.
Comments
What a bunch of creeps. Every year they increase our tippin costs at the landfill and then give the money to airy fairy ideas.
Cheers
Yeah, anything that promotes tourists to our area is a waste of time & money. Try recycling, maybe your “tippin” costs will go down. Unbelievable.
A good news story to win our approval for more funding for their ludicrous ideas!
For years prior to this Golden waste of tax dollars, info about our regions attractions have been available online and through other media for all to discover.
Shoulda called it the “Golden Goose”. i.e. dropping golden eggs for those belonging to any special interest group that has developed the art of applying for grants. ( I think there is a book published with that info). As an aside, I still remember the potential gift of a million bucks offered by the FFGRD to the wheelers and dealers and backers of the Performing Arts Centre. Lucky for me and the others who have trash transported to the local land fill, it fell through. Moments before the Feds and provincial funding dropped off the earth too. I also remember city hall’s response to this which was, “I guess we will have to persue other avenues, I guess”. Never say die, eh? I do not like the fact that the the RRFFG had a million bucks sitting around and being able to offer it to a “special interest group”, yet my indirect tipping fees went up? Simplistic interpretation? Every regional district have this “right” to disperse hard earned taxpayer funds for favourite causes with their hands out? Committee of one? I invite someone from the RRFFG to use their spin to put me in my place.
“The Visitorsâ centres also saw increases:
Prince George +17%
Mackenzie +17%
McBride +6%
Valemount +13%”
Hey, how about some real numbers instead of these percentages? If you have 2 visitors one year and 4 the next, it’s a 100% increase. Looks impressive, until you realize you only went from 2 to 4.
Maybe if we had some real numbers, we could figure out how much taxpayers are paying to keep to visitors centres open and how much each visitor ‘costs’ us.
“The Regional District of Fraser Fort George is achieving success with itâs âGolden Ravenâ marketing plan to promote a number of heritage or cultural sights.”
That’s their take on it. How do they know that for sure vs. random variances in visitors from year to year? Again, some real numbers would be nice.
The tourist bureau numbers, like the numbers at the Library, and Art Centre are bogus at best. They move school children through these facilities to bulk up the numbers.
At best it is a mugs game.
I agree that we need to start to work with real numbers.
Library numbers are perhaps easier to calculate – they have the record of individual visitors who check out items to compare to the digital “clicker” that counts every time someone walks past the sensor.
I forgot about the golden raven until this article lol
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