A Tale of Two Cities, Part 2
The last time I did a “tale of the tape” between Winnipeg and Halifax, Michael of Life’s a Journey asked me if Winnipeg outdid Halifax on any front. With Sam Katz’s recent budget in mind, I would have to say Winnipeg has far better convention facilities than Halifax. One need only compare this to this or this, although this is quite nice (but they don’t hold the boat, car or home shows there).
When I was in Winnipeg, I absolutely loved attending the boat shows, Home Expressions and all of the other events that let us know spring was on its way. However, as I asked in Policy Frog’s blog entry, is there a real need to expand the Winnipeg Convention Centre? Are any shows being turned away? Is the current building running anywhere near full capacity? Does burdening Winnipeg hotels with a tax to subsidize bigger convention facilities make sense?
If anyone needs updated convention facilities, it is Halifax. Tourism spending in Nova Scotia totals $1.3 billion and 2.1 million people visit the province annually – contrast that with just under 500,000 visitors to Manitoba in 2006. When you look at those numbers, is there really a need to build a convention centre Taj Mahal in Winnipeg? Or should the city make better use of the excellent facilities it already has?
If I were trying to attract more people to Manitoba, I would focus on the spring and summer months when the weather is excellent. Trying to lure tourists to a vibrant city, fabulous lakes and easy access to nature would be far easier than trying to convince convention goers that they should stage their next corporate gathering in January or February in -30 (-60 with the windchill) weather.
UPDATE - I stand corrected on the tourism numbers - please refer to the Comments. Thanks for pointing it out, D!
posted by Unapologetic Ex-Winnipegger @ 11:03 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
I would be a remiss blog reader if I didn't correct some of the math you quote in this post. You are comparing total tourism visits in Halifax with US visitation only in Manitoba.
Total tourism visitation numbers in Manitoba for 2006 were over 6.9 Million with revenues over $1.4 Billion.
Source: http://ti.travelmanitoba.com/assets/pdf/2007_travel_manitoba_annual_report_english.pdf (Page 9, Conference board of Canada pie charts)
Can you paste the rest of the link? I'd like to see where those numbers are coming from. Total traffic at the Winnipeg airport is just over 3 million people per year - I would assume a large chunk of those individuals are Manitobans. That leaves a lot of people coming into Manitoba by car. I also find it interesting that Manitoba could have more than 3 times the visitors than Nova Scotia, where the latter has cruise programs and such an active tourism industry.
Thanks!
http://www.gov.mb.ca/ctt/profiles/tourism/index.html
It says here that 72% of the $1.4 Billion comes from Manitobans. That leaves $392 million coming from people outside of Manitoba.
Hi, sure can. Sorry not sure why that link went all weird.
http://ti.travelmanitoba.com/assets/pdf/2007_travel_manitoba_annual_report_english.pdf
Both provinces are referencing tourism visitors including those from within the region. On your link to the NS fact sheet, you'll see the same pie chart Manitoba references at the top of page one showing that 55% of their visitors are from within Atlantic Canada.
Ok that didn't work either. I'm not savvy enough to embed it so how about this:
http://ti.travelmanitoba.com/bestsellers/annual_report.html
Click on the 2006/07 Annual Report.
As for: "It says here that 72% of the $1.4 Billion comes from Manitobans. That leaves $392 million coming from people outside of Manitoba."
That is completely not correct. While Manitobans do account for 72% of the visitation numbers, they only account for 55.3% of the actual spending with $331.7M coming from the rest of Canada, $181.1M from the USA and $90.5M coming from overseas.
(Those numbers are also in the annual report referenced above.)
Not all visitors are created equal. :)
Ok, based on what I can ascertain from page 7 of the Annual Report, out of province visitors for Manitoba were 1.927 million and spent $603.3 million.
Nova Scotia had 2.1 million visitors who spent a total of $822 million, i.e. 36.25% more than spending for Manitoba (numbers derived straight from fact sheet).
While the differential is not quite as dramatic, the question still remains whether or not the Winnipeg Convention Centre really needs the expansion, especially when compared to what is currently in use in Halifax.
Thanks for helping me get the proper numbers!
It might seem counter-intuitive, but when I was working as an ESL instructor, Red River, the University of Winnipeg, and the University of Manitoba all had viable ESL programs that lured students from much warmer climes to study English in Manitoba, all year round. There is no reason why the convention center couldn't make a go of things all year round.
I could see merit in positioning Winnipeg as the geographic centre, thus able to serve as the middlepoint for a corporate gathering. However, it's no accident that Vegas is such a huge draw for conventions. While the purpose is ostensibly business, people no doubt also attend conventions as a tax-free way to vacation. Winnipeg therefore has an uphill battle in selling the "value expressive" reasons people attend conventions - most want to escape the cold, not pay money to be even colder.
The biggest problem with a convention-based economic development strategy is that nearly every city in North America is pursuing the same thing. And when given the choice between Winnipeg and San Diego, Orlando, New York or San Francisco, which do you think most convention planners and attendees are going to pick? Heck, I'd even pick Halifax over Winnipeg for a conference in a second.
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