R.I.P Tourism BC

Its been a few weeks now in our winter base unit on the lake in Lavigne, Ontario.  First few days we took it easy and took a well deserved rest after being on the road for 5 months researching and talking with the tourism industry.

The leaves are turning colors now. The temperatures are dipping into single digit numbers. It is now the time of year where we really focus on  developing of our travel websites. We feel so lucky to be doing what we do – paying our own way and producing a quality service. It is motivating to know, our tourism product is the biggest and best referring tourism website in BC, Canada. How do we know?  Statistics show us this and our clients tell us this.

R.I.P. BC Tourism.. so sad, too bad.

Yes, the government has  axed the entire staff and board at BC Tourism.  How funny is that. A corporation that ran tourism in BC for 11 years as a monopoly – we like to call it tourismopoly.  And contrary to popular belief they did a poor job.

This is the same corporation that lacked focus on marketing.  For years they put all their eggs in one basket  marketing to the USA as if the boom will never end.  Then the market shriveled up fast and where are we now as a tourism industry. No back up plan whats so ever. 63 Million dollars a year and what to show for it?  What a waste of direction and funds.

In the media..  BC Tourism is crying the blues, telling us how wonderful they were and how as an industry we are doomed without them. That is just nonsense. As an industry we are resilient and creative.. and we will adjust and thrive. We will form our own groups and teamwork will be a must now.

What is with all these awards they say they have won!!  Awards – what ever, how hard is it to win awards with no competition. They operate in a monopoly atmosphere.

The media should be talking about how BC Tourism (which should be called VWVT Tourism) focuses on just four areas of the province Vancouver-Whistler-Victoria-Tofino leaving the rest of the province and smaller communities to fend for themselves. In some cases became ghost towns. There is nothing about how BC Tourism spent no time or effort in educating the tourism industry. Most tourism busineses do not know what a browser is or how to track marketing dollars or how the internet works.  This is scary.

All we hear in the media is how wonderful they were. Brainwashing! Does the media ever talk to the mom and pops of tourism and hear the real stories? I do not think so. Nothing about how they and many chambers are not receptive to any competition ( we know, we tried to open a tourism centre and were threatened by a group of chambers who do not like to play in the same sand box.) . We know from experience tourism is not a team effort but only a top down organization.

The dismantling of BC Tourism by the BC Government is a good thing.  It will force business to fend for themselves resulting in educating themselves more. It will also thin out the industry.  With the internet and sound marketing small business do not need to rely on overpaid tourism associations and their biases, favortisms, power struggles and  rotating door of  untrained staff.  It is good they got knocked down a peg. Egos were getting too big on the other side of the fence anyway.