On cruise control

The numerous cruise ships that ply the waters of the Canadian Arctic every summer have persuaded a growing number of affluent tourists to part with large amounts of cash, producing a growing and thriving business for those who own or lease them.

But very little of that cash ends up in the hands of Inuit, who are often unable to make any money from the well-heeled tourists who suddenly show up when cruise ships drop anchor in front of their communities.

The Makivik Corp. has come up with an idea that they think will change all that. On behalf of the Inuit of Nunavik, they’re gone into the cruise business themselves.

Together with Dugald Wells, an Arctic cruise industry veteran, they’ve created a subsidiary called Cruise North Expeditions. The company will lease a small, 66-passenger vessel and launch a series of eight scheduled Arctic cruises this summer.

To make their business more competitive, Makivik is using its 100-per-cent ownership of First Air to beat down their price and make their cruises affordable for larger numbers of customers. Their prices start at $2,490 for a combined seven-day air-sea package. Customers would fly to Kuujjuaq on First Air, board the ship, take their sea-voyage, then fly back to the South after the ship returns to Kuujjuaq.

Even better, Cruise North Expeditions will work with communities to include them in the economic activity that cruise-ship tourists will generate.

If it works, this will provide benefits not only to the Inuit of Nunavik, but also to people in Nunavut. Though their ports of call include many Nunavik communities, their ship will also put in at Kimmirut, Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung. All three of those communities have much to offer tourists, and much to gain from a well-organized approach to tourism.

Those in Nunavut who still believe the territory might one day be able to build a tourism industry ought to take a close look at what Makivik is doing.

Because in addition to the aforementioned benefits, Makivik’s foray into the cruise ship business represents something that Nunavut does not get: investment. Nunavut desperately needs private and public investors willing to put money into the creation of products and services that will give travellers things to do and places to go, along with the services of trained people who know what they’re doing.

Right now, Nunavut does not have a tourism industry, and government officials should stop pretending that there is one. The most popular tourism attraction in Nunavut, Auyittuq National Park, brings just over 400 people a year. Other destinations receive even fewer visitors, not enough to be worthy of the term “industry.”

The vast majority of people who travel to, and within, Nunavut are not tourists. They’re bureaucrats and business people who travel because somebody orders them to travel and pays their way. Or they’re Nunavut residents who travel within Nunavut. In Iqaluit, one tourism operator told us that the majority of his customers last summer were local residents.

A tourist is a person who spends his or her own money to travel for pleasure, or education. Nunavut gets very few visitors who come for those reasons. Only more investment — which these days means private investment — will change that. Most other Arctic jurisdictions, such as Alaska, Yukon, Iceland and Finland spend many tens of millions of dollars a year just on marketing, and tens of millions more on the development of hotels, lodges and attractions. And there’s a pay-off. Tourists who flock to those places are counted in the thousands and in the tens of thousands, not in the hundreds.

Makvik’s creation of Cruise North Expeditions is a modest first step. But it’s a first step in the right direction. Nunavut’s business and political leaders should pay attention. JB