Nunavut tourism strategy in the works: Nunavut Tourism

Colleen Dupuis, the executive director of Nunavut Tourism, says the organization has made “huge strides” in growing tourism across the territory. The organization will host Nunavut’s first major tourism conference in March 2012. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Nunavut Tourism has big plans to grow the industry and welcome more visitors to Nunavut.

To guide its efforts and map its plans, Nunavut Tourism is working with the Government of Nunavut’s economic development and transportation department to draft the territory’s first tourism strategy.

This strategy should be finished by early next year, said Colleen Dupuis, the executive director of Nunavut Tourism.

“Nunavut has a mining strategy, an arts and crafts strategy – the tourism industry is among the last to have one,” Dupuis said.

Many involved in tourism have told Nunavut Tourism that they want to see more support in selling their product and attracting more visitors to Nunavut.

That was the message delivered to Nunavut Tourism during community consultations which took place across the territory this past spring.

“I know people view tourism as a sector that can grow in terms of support and infrastructure,” Dupuis said. “There has been some challenges facing the industry, but in the past months, substantial growth has taken place.”

Ideas and suggestions from those 10 consultations will form the basis of the tourism strategy, which should be finished early in 2012, she said.

Nunavut Tourism will then present a draft version of the strategy at the territory’s first major tourism conference, scheduled for next March in Iqaluit.

Dupuis hopes to see 200 to 250 participants from across the northern territories, southern Canada and Greenland at the conference.

“We’ll be talking about best practices and how we can learn from one and other,” she said. “I hope the information that will come out of it help the industry to move ahead.”

The conference participants will also provide input on the draft strategy, although the strategy’s final approval – and the money needed to implement its recommendations – will come from the GN.

The strategy is expected to include:

• plans to contract out the operation of the territory’s four year-round visitor centres;

• a framework for industry stakeholders and the GN’s economic development and transportation department to build an accreditation program for operators; and,

• an insurance plan for visitors to protect them against trip cancellations.

Although the tourism strategy isn’t in place yet, Nunavut Tourism is already working with the GN to provide training so outfitters can offer more recreational sport fishing trips to visitors.

“Some operators have told us they’ve has requests for fly fishing, but they don’t have the training to offer it,” Dupuis said.

Nunavut Tourism also recently renegotiated an insurance package for small tourism operators, who account for most of its 132 members — for the first time in 10 years.

That small operator liability was cancelled following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when the insurance industry saw such high payouts that many non-essential insurance plans were cancelled.

Nunavut Tourism also plans to launch a new website this fall.

The first round of television commercials about the North, first broadcast in April have already generated positive feedback, Dupuis said.

The 30-second ad, which can be viewed here, shows sweeping views of landscapes, wildlife and cultural icons from Canada’s three northern territories.

Nunavut Tourism also plans to bring to the world to see its tourism product in person this summer, inviting tourism officials and operators from Germany, the UK and the Netherlands to visit Nunavut.

“So they’ll see the product for themselves,” Dupuis said. “Actually seeing the product gives you a much better basis to sell the product.”