Wasn't Ms. Kulchiski just hired a little over a year ago? When will they realize that there isnt much ado about Prince George until the crime and pollution get cleaned up....its a place to go through, not to in many people's eyes. A tourist destination it is not.

Wait a minute... we have pulpmill tours and wildlife viewing on George St.

The train still doesn't stop here. Doh!

Them Clarke people can make it happen! Give her a chance.

Ms. Kulchiski has been the manager for several more year than just the past year.

As posters have already said, if the infrastructure for "real" tourism development is not here, then that infrastructure hasd to be built.

That infrastructure sits outside the PG city limits. So, I am not sure how Tourism PG is going to nurture the building of that infrastructure. It really becomes a mutliple regional district matter, not just the RDFFG.

Really, it seems to me that Northern British Columbia Tourism should have much more of an impact. So, the question I would have is, what projects and programmes has Ms. Clarke championed as a director of that organization.

Personally I have not seen these associations do much around here at all.

A better public awareness campaign might be in order to let the public know what assistance these tourism associations really provide to regions to increase their tourism infrastructure.

Example .... what assitance have they provided to the Huble Homestead other than having a brochure in their racks.

What assistance have they provided to put packages together to combine programs in PG with heli skiers passing through this community on their way to skiing vactations in the Robson Valley.

In short .... we are close to some wonderful countryside. It is time someone takes inventory, identify where capacity can be built, come up with a business plan of ho to implement the realization of those opportunites and start the long road to making this an effective tourism destination.

We have the airport. We have a few hotels that are rather quaint on the world scale. We have a few restaurants that, in my opinion, are actually better quality than the hotels. We have very little in the form or activities.

We have a decimated riverfront trail system; we have a forest for the world that I can also best describe as quaint; we have a riverfront on the Fraser which does not have a single restaurant or hotel on it wher people could enjoy a bit more of the scenery which makes this community what it is.

In short, we have no one with ideas, and we have no one who can carry those ideas forward.

Good luck Ms. Clarke. Hopefully you can do more than promote gambling as a reason to come and stay in PG for a few days longer.

NBCTA IMO does not have a proper mandate to do what it needs to do. They limit their mandate to simply partner sharing advertisement dollars through their three programs of marketing partnerships for communities and paid stakeholder members.

You can have them pay up to 50% of an advertisement for your business in a few dozen selected publications (buys influence for the government with media), but you will have to pay an admin and media fee of around 20% so in effect you can save up to 30% on your advertising. If your lucky you can get them to sponsor you for a trip to New York or London to man your booth at trade shows as long as you also hand out NBCTA pamphlets, but for free air fare and hotels ect... its quite a good deal for those that take advantage of it. At least a few dozen trade shows are sponsored each year and they are usually selected based on where people haven't yet travel to not based on market research to determine what kind of tourists we are targeting.

What NBCTA does is no different than what the other RMO's (Regional Marketing Organizations) are doing. All RMO's are funded by the provincial government through Tourism BC and NBCTA receives around $700,000 a year for their 'marketing' activities. They also received $2 Million in flex funds a few years back that was supposed to go to creative solutions for marketing tourism, but was used instead to buy a $700,000 office building for their HQ on 5th Avenue hidden away in the downtown with no signs marketing what they do in that building. I found it frustrating that we were not allowed to market our services to the public in the way I thought it should have been done.

The biggest problem with NBCTA is that they will not expand their mandate to partner with tour operators and travel agents to set up a bookings system for the small tourism operators that are needed to build the industry. Unless they can build a critical mass of industry that is effectively serviced then they are a failure IMO. Also why can't they get involved in providing certification systems in place for the tour operators that they market when they have every fly by night operator getting funding and a lot of them have a bad record of over selling their services (some of the native bands on the coast that never paid their bills either), which then reflects badly on all the others that NBCTA markets on behalf of. I also feel they need to broaden their mandate to also advocate on behalf of the tourism industry in Northern BC, but they say that will endanger their provincial funding and therefor is not part of the NBCTA mandate. They like to travel and do advertisement ads, but that is the bare minimum.

However if one looks at the RMO's in all the other regions of BC they do all the things I listed above as part of their expanded mandate set up with the flex dollars and operated through fees collected by their members. NBCTA had a serious problem of its BOD members all being stakeholder business owners (pro liberal) that had an interest in getting their funding for their business and fearing competition for example highway 16&37 trying to get all the funding while the Alaska Highway folk being left out in the cold and causing infighting. At one point Smithers was the king pin with the majority of the BOD members. I always felt the BOD should be made up of the municipal tourism heads and not the individual business operators themselves who have obvious bias in their policy meant to direct all business to themselves and not to create a greater regional industry. The current set up is all about building empires and not building an industry.

I worked for them as the financial officer for four months a few years back, but was fired (by the Smithers BOD members and an absentee CEO) for wanting to expand the organization mandate and address some of the inefficiencies in the organization. It didn't come as a surprise considering who was in charge and how they profited directly and indirectly from the organization.

Good post - I read the whole thing!

Finding some tourist oriented stuff that we are allowed to do is tough. SeaDoo tours on the Crooked River are really interesting but a no no. River boat racing on PG's biggest asset doesn't happen, instead people go to places that barely have water. Glider competive events or hot air ballons or air shows?

OWL for MAYOR....i'm sure he could single handily promote PG to the next Kelowna of BC

Go OWL!!!

With the price of gasoline and deasel there is going to be no need for a tourist guide!! Please go sign this petition!! And while you are there, read some of the posts! It is very sad how many people are not able to afford to drive any longer. The sick, old, students and poor.

http://www.petitiononline.com/zoo123/petition.html

Please do not buy gas or fuel of any kind on Wednesdays! Canadians have to speak up and now! We are being ripped off!