If you market it, they will come — but some say P.E.I. tourism should go beyond 'driving revenue' | CBC News LoadedPrince Edward Island's tourism strategy is focused on growth for the industry. But as popular destinations around the world hit their limits, making them better places to live is increasingly on the agenda as well.P.E.I.'s tourism strategy is focused on increasing revenue for the industry by bringing in more and more visitors to spend money on the Island.
They cost thousands of dollars every year to repair and replace — money the board doesn't have. So every year, it applies to the province for funding to keep the trail appropriately marked. The walk generated huge media interest in its first years. Travel + Leisure, National Geographic, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and BBC Travel all ran features on it. The value of the coverage has been estimated as high as $20 million, said Guptill.
One way the government supports that goal is by spending millions every year on marketing. Rachel Dodds, a professor of hospitality and tourism management at Toronto Metropolitan University, finds something lacking in that approach. Dodds agrees industry players should have a say in a region's tourism strategy, but she thinks non-profit groups and residents also have a stake. Visitors use resources like beds, highways, water, space on the sidewalk — and none of these things have a limitless supply.
Government promotion of the industry made a lot of sense in the 1960s and 70s, said Prof. Jim Sentance of the University of Prince Edward Island economics department. Take, for example, accommodation and food services, a major part of the tourism economy. In 2023, the GDP generated per job in that sector was $42,789. That compares to $81,653 per job for the economy as a whole.
"We waste a lot of money on marketing. We spend a lot of money on marketing places and very, very little money managing those places," she said. The Guild in Charlottetown had to go through a major restructuring, and Art in the Open, which has offered an art show at various locations around Charlottetown in late August for more than decade, announced it would heavily scale back this year while it reviews its sustainability.
Confederation Centre is unusual; the result of a Canadian centennial project is a national cultural organization but not a federal Crown corporation. It relies on provincial funding to keep the lights on, but that funding achieves little more than that, said Jessie Inman, who was the CEO of the centre from 2011 to 2018.