"hoteliers advise January and February are typically their slowest months of the year"

So this was not taken into account when projecting the figures for those months? Or they were and the projections were overestimated?

Maybe Rogers got confused at thought if they bought the PG hotel it would generate tax dollars?!?!

Pretty misleading headline.

I thought maybe the PG Hotel was paying up back tax's or something like that.

Gus,pretty lame and petty posting. I am pretty sure that Tourism people will know that January and February is slow months.

What I would like to know is, what they are going to do with a budget of $800,000
a year. sure they can produce pretty fancy websites, and brochures. What does Websites cost, top notch..... maybe $10,000.00. What does 50,000 throw away phamplets cost. $50,000.00. What are these people going to do. How are we going to measure if there marketing skills are making a difference. If the mining and other business activities heat up, it will make the hotels a bit busier, so how are they going to differentiate their success.

I think, something is not being laid out here. The only way, it is going to improve tourism, is, there has to be something here that people will travel to Prince George. Quesnel has Barkerville and Billy Barker days. Williams Lake has its Stampede. For a city of this size, we are a bit pathetic. We don't even have a civic campgrounds, we rely on Walmart.

If the city wants to be serious about tourism, and having them stay in Prince George for an extra night or two, Then do something to want them to stay. Instead of fifteen minutes to gas up and grab a bag of cheezies, and they say what a sh*@%ole this place is, who'd ever want to live here.

$800k a year, I sure hope the person they pick is not looking for just a place to work. I hope he/she sets goals and then over acheives them.

Good luck, this is your one shot... until they find another way to tax.

"What I would like to know is, what they are going to do with a budget of $800,000"

Just like you suggested, it will go a long way for advertising, website and brochure design. It's one thing that IPG does very well.

The great thing about designing a website or making a brochure is that it's very hard to tell how effective (or not) that they are. So the cycle continues.

Prince George is definitely not a destination spot, never will be. But it's a great stopover for travelers passing through. We've been wonderful hosts of many conferences, fairs, sporting events and shows of all different kinds. Prince George is the hub of the north which attracts shoppers, college and university students. We have malls, big box stores, art gallery, museum, professional theater, symphony, swimming pools, skating rink, movie theater, casino, gourmet dining, tons of fast food outlets. We have super B&Bs too. This city is far from being a hole. We have easy access to lakes, rivers, camping, hiking, fishing, hunting. The folks I've talked to who are tourists like Prince George and say the people here are friendly and courteous and the services are excellent. It's easy to point to the negatives but when you add up our assets, Prince George is a pretty awesome place to visit.

Tax, Tax, Tax,Scam, Scam, Scam.

"The great thing about designing a website or making a brochure is that it's very hard to tell how effective (or not) that they are. So the cycle continues."

Especially very hard if one does not put any control into the system that allows such info to be captured.

There are marketing specialists that can set up programs so that one has a pretty good idea of how effective a program is.

Think of a 10% off coupon that is available from the back of a brochure or from a web site. Those "special" offers are typically not put there just out of the goodness of a retailer's heart.

Of course, if one has no monitoring system in place before starting a campaign, then there is no way to measure the difference.

Thanks "he spoke". I totally disagree.

It says nothing about what the projected amount was based on. Last year's figures?

In that case, if they were 85% of last year when the economic picture in other areas of discretionary spending is picking up then it would be interesting to know why they were only at 85%.

Or were they projecting that 2010 would be better than 2009? In which case they were wrong with their improvement projections.

I think it is important to know how well an orgnization is able to predict cash flow. The hotels that make up the key components of the organization are not exactly new at this. They have years of background data to contribute.

I realize that the economic change in the last year and a half have been greater than average.

I still would like to know how the projections were made. It would tell me a lot more. Without that knowledge, it tells me nothing of any importance.