Tourism Melville's Annual General Meeting (AGM) heard a strong message about the importance of tourism in the province from Tourism Saskatchewan's CEO Dr. Lynda Haverstock.
About 50 people attended the AGM, at the City Hall Opera House last Tuesday, to hear of the vital work being done by both Tourism Melville and Tourism Saskatchewan to attract visitors to the city and province.
Haverstock set the tone for the evening with a short video presentation from Tourism Saskatchewan featuring Saskatchewan musical artists and various tourist attractions around the province.
"When we ask people, who have never come to Saskatchewan and what they think is here, the most usual answer is western prairies. They don't realize we are much more," Haverstock says.
"It's difficult to get people's head around the fact half of our province is made up of forest and we have 100,000 lakes."
Haverstock says Melville has so much to offer which needs to be celebrated.
"I really want to say how thrilled I am to be here, and tourism manager Jeniffer Mann is a terrific cheerleader for the city," Haverstock says.
She was impressed with the innovation Melville has shown to the re-use of existing buildings, in particular she noted the Melville Community Works building. However, it was the economic argument Haverstock put the most emphasis on.
"Tourism was worth $1.6 billion to the province in 2009 and last week we had more good news from tourism with a 4.13 per cent more tourism related jobs created this year than 2009. More than 62,000 people in the province earn a livelihood from tourism," Haverstock says.
"The labor demand is going to grow, it's predicted the job growth will outstrip some pretty big sectors. The job growth in tourism will be double that of gas and mining put together and three per cent above retail."
Clearly tourism is an integral part of the economy and is certainly home grown: "90 per cent of tourist businesses in our province are small or medium sized and independently owned and operated. They are a significant economic driver," Haverstock says.
"In this region you have 74 attractions, events and tourism businesses which employ 500 people. The important question to ask now is, can this number be increased? I would say yes!"
Haverstock says a lot of Tourism Saskatchewan's efforts are not seen in the province.
"So much of our focus really is outside the province and aiming at the huge market outside the province. I think we are doing a great job in spreading the good news about our province to the rest of the world."
Tourism Saskatchewan is more than just about marketing, its about research, policy development, training and assistance with human resources and education.
"We are in strong partnerships across the province with training and development for tourism. First Nations are particularly interested in developing tourism as a business."
Another essential component of tourism, says Haverstock, is customer service.
"Tourism Saskat-chewan is set to put in place a quality assurance program for customer service in the province and I have set up a Presidential task team for quality assurance," she says.
"Right now when it comes to setting standards of customer-service quality I have to say we are behind in the pack and we need to be leading the pack.
"Tourists do lots of research about where they are going. Ratings and reviews affect where they go. We need to be on the radar where we meet and exceed expectations," Haverstock says.
Haverstock says the mindset in Saskatchewan needs to change about tourism.
"Often when you talk about tourism in Saskatchewan people think of some 'exotic' far away place. I say think again."
