By Dominic Abassi

Tourism Nanaimo transition plan approved in tight vote

Nov 29, 2016 | 4:25 PM

NANAIMO — In a narrow 5-4 vote, Nanaimo council has decided to move ahead with a transition plan while staff figure out the long-term vision of how to provide tourism services for the city.

The three phase plan, recommended by staff and approved by council last night, begins with what the report calls a comprehensive engagement and visioning process with industry stakeholders. That goes along with the creation of a tourism advisory committee to take the place of the current tourism leadership committee. On top of that, Tourism Vancouver Island (TVI) will be hired to provide destination marketing and development services at an estimated cost of $475,000.

“I’m feeling very unsettled that we’re sitting here tonight sort of brainstorming on the fly, making amendments by the seat of our pants,” said Coun. Ian Thorpe, who voted against the motion. “I would prefer that we took a little bit more time…go back and meet with our local experts and stakeholders.”

Council made an in-camera decision in October to pull tourism from the mandate of the Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation (NEDC). Tourism Nanaimo, under the banner of the NEDC, will only receive funding until March 31, 2017. Staff have referenced recommendations made in two different consultant reports, including the core services review, as the reason for the decision. The move, according to staff, is designed to bring all of the various tourism stakeholders together to fix a lack of collaboration.

While the four councillors that voted against the transition plan (Pratt, Thorpe, Brennan and McKay) cited a need to slow things down and get more feedback from stakeholders, staff, along with Coun. Bill Bestwick, said that’s effectively what phase one of the plan is designed to do.

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“Let’s got on with this. The service agreement with Tourism Vancouver Island is an absolute necessity…that’s destination development marketing and we’ve already made a decision to go destination development marketing for the most part, so are we going to hold that up too? I don’t think that would be a wise thing to do,” said Bestwick.

It’s still unclear what the transition will mean for the five local employees of Tourism Nanaimo. Coun. Jerry Hong tried to include in the motion a requirement that at least one of those staff be hired by TVI to help with continuity, but the city’s chief administrative officer Tracy Samra said she would prefer if that not be included. Samra said there is the possibility that something can be worked out with the union (CUPE) to look at options for those five employees, including having one hired by the city in another role.

“I am having a hard time with a group that has done really good work over the last year all of a sudden disappearing and not being a part of this process up to whenever we decide to do something new and different,” said Coun. Wendy Pratt.

Pratt says council has had emails from people in the industry that think their tourism staff have done a fantastic job in the last year. She wondered if TVI would give them everything they received before with Tourism Nanaimo.

TVI president Dave Petryk told the meeting that they plan on hiring 2.5 full-time equivalent staff to handle the new workload.

The city’s communication and engagement director Philip Cooper, who authored the staff report and recommendations, was asked why the city wouldn’t leave Tourism Nanaimo the way it is while they figure out what the new model will be. Cooper stated via email that a temporary solution is needed because the NEDC funding for tourism runs out in March of next year. Cooper was then asked why not extend the funding to ensure continuity in the sector in the interim.

“Tourism Vancouver Island made it clear in their initial proposal that they will be able to deliver a service solution that addresses continuity, starting with the creation of a business plan that includes input from stakeholders and the city,” stated Cooper via email.

Phase two of the approved transition plan calls for the new tourism advisory committee to focus on creating the template for the future of tourism delivery in Nanaimo. While the staff report called for the new model to be ready to implement in April 2018, council pulled that timeline from the motion. Another recommendation to have the Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association take over operation of the city’s visitor centre was also taken out of the motion.