Bill:
Good article.
This ferry thing is very critical in so many ways, as if it fails , we all know that will be the last ferry system between the USA and NS for a long time .
People have to understand this is not a “tourist” only ferry; this is a transportation of goods and people ferry. Giving the Tourism Minister the lead role was the first mistake. It should have been the Transportation Minister. That being said, where the heck is the Finance Minister in this mess . Where the heck are the specialists in procurement and contracting ?? Who is counting the beans?
Yes Bill you are very astute to say that the sale of the room nights is the best way , and only way, to measure the tourism economic factors in this puzzle.
We have a short season in Nova Scotia .
If you look around at “infrastructure” when it comes to tourism, our main NS attractions are all the things that were/are all heavily on mainly federally funded i.e the Cabot Trail , Louisburg, the NS Tattoo, Grand Pre , Annapolis , even LIGHTHOUSES .
The province of NS tries to run the Keltic Lodge and Digby Pines, but who knows how well that is done, but we do know nothing has changed very much in 20 years .
We do not not have a half decent bus system, let alone a train system and again the province is part of that problem too .
Which Municipalities have spent much on tourism infrastructure ? Do you see any new visitor centres? any rest areas or picnic look offs?
Governments,provincial and municipal take in over $300 million a year on tourism tax dollars alone and bet they spend less than $30 million . SO what does that tell us ???
Yes we are competing globally but that is just the way it is . So are Newfoundland and PEI, so why do they seem to be doing so much better than NS ?
I do not buy the scarce tourism dollars argument either . There are lots of tourists out there spending lots of money , but jut not in NS . And we are cheaper than our competitors in many ways .
I tend to suggest that Canada and NS should look around the globe at similar countries and provincial destinations to see how we compare.
My suggestion is that Ireland is one such place to look at and by comparison, as a country or as just the province, Ireland is so far ahead of Canada and then NS , it is not even funny .
Ireland is not cheap to visit or tour either . Accommodations is maybe 30-40 % higher , restaurants 20-50% higher but bus and train transportation within Ireland is very cheap.
Yet, numbers wise , Ireland has grown their USA traffic and their tourism overall and are predicting, so far in 2014 , that they may have had another year of a 10% plus increase.
And also , Ireland has the same underground tourism problem that we have in NS when it comes to accommodations , but they again have partially fixed that through their income tax system .
Just look at the bus system on Ireland as compared to NS . You don’t see mini-vans running around there , you see buses of all sizes and they are all full . Their trains are also all over the place and leo full, and they have a country of only 4 million. They have passenger trains that vary in length from 1 car to 30 cars . And they have ferries going to several islands too. And on and on .
Back to the ferry.
Where are the Nova Scotia government and municipal bean counters that should be scrutinizing every cent here and every statistic to see what we do to keep this system going . I know of maybe 30 cases where ex-pats and tourism travellers from the USA (and Ontario) that opted to NOT take that ferry this summer. Two USA parties had gotten huge discounts and were planning trips and then both cancelled . Both opted to drive the route afterwards .
This ferry may be an easy situation to relate to but it also a sign a very larger problem in the way our Provincial government ministers are managing in general . And it’s not just this government , it is the last 3 . SO that tells me we have even bigger problems at the bureaucrat level. Now try to flush that one out .
While the previous government and the current government have made decisions on this issue that we may not agree with, this is a political and emotionally charged issue for the citizens of Southwest Nova. Thank you for asserting a very frank assessment that this is a political discussion. While many may have wished a different operator or a different outcome, we do need to give the current operator sufficient time to see if a go can be made of the situation. Otherwise no experienced operator in future will take a service Maine – Nova Scotia seriously, and we will be no better off than we were in 2011. Many Nova Scotians think that this is an easy business to be in, but it is not; the cold hard reality is that we are competing in a global tourism market for scarce post-economic crisis tourism dollars. So patience is necessary.
Bill:
Good article.
This ferry thing is very critical in so many ways, as if it fails , we all know that will be the last ferry system between the USA and NS for a long time .
People have to understand this is not a “tourist” only ferry; this is a transportation of goods and people ferry. Giving the Tourism Minister the lead role was the first mistake. It should have been the Transportation Minister. That being said, where the heck is the Finance Minister in this mess . Where the heck are the specialists in procurement and contracting ?? Who is counting the beans?
Yes Bill you are very astute to say that the sale of the room nights is the best way , and only way, to measure the tourism economic factors in this puzzle.
We have a short season in Nova Scotia .
If you look around at “infrastructure” when it comes to tourism, our main NS attractions are all the things that were/are all heavily on mainly federally funded i.e the Cabot Trail , Louisburg, the NS Tattoo, Grand Pre , Annapolis , even LIGHTHOUSES .
The province of NS tries to run the Keltic Lodge and Digby Pines, but who knows how well that is done, but we do know nothing has changed very much in 20 years .
We do not not have a half decent bus system, let alone a train system and again the province is part of that problem too .
Which Municipalities have spent much on tourism infrastructure ? Do you see any new visitor centres? any rest areas or picnic look offs?
Governments,provincial and municipal take in over $300 million a year on tourism tax dollars alone and bet they spend less than $30 million . SO what does that tell us ???
Yes we are competing globally but that is just the way it is . So are Newfoundland and PEI, so why do they seem to be doing so much better than NS ?
I do not buy the scarce tourism dollars argument either . There are lots of tourists out there spending lots of money , but jut not in NS . And we are cheaper than our competitors in many ways .
I tend to suggest that Canada and NS should look around the globe at similar countries and provincial destinations to see how we compare.
My suggestion is that Ireland is one such place to look at and by comparison, as a country or as just the province, Ireland is so far ahead of Canada and then NS , it is not even funny .
Ireland is not cheap to visit or tour either . Accommodations is maybe 30-40 % higher , restaurants 20-50% higher but bus and train transportation within Ireland is very cheap.
Yet, numbers wise , Ireland has grown their USA traffic and their tourism overall and are predicting, so far in 2014 , that they may have had another year of a 10% plus increase.
And also , Ireland has the same underground tourism problem that we have in NS when it comes to accommodations , but they again have partially fixed that through their income tax system .
Just look at the bus system on Ireland as compared to NS . You don’t see mini-vans running around there , you see buses of all sizes and they are all full . Their trains are also all over the place and leo full, and they have a country of only 4 million. They have passenger trains that vary in length from 1 car to 30 cars . And they have ferries going to several islands too. And on and on .
Back to the ferry.
Where are the Nova Scotia government and municipal bean counters that should be scrutinizing every cent here and every statistic to see what we do to keep this system going . I know of maybe 30 cases where ex-pats and tourism travellers from the USA (and Ontario) that opted to NOT take that ferry this summer. Two USA parties had gotten huge discounts and were planning trips and then both cancelled . Both opted to drive the route afterwards .
This ferry may be an easy situation to relate to but it also a sign a very larger problem in the way our Provincial government ministers are managing in general . And it’s not just this government , it is the last 3 . SO that tells me we have even bigger problems at the bureaucrat level. Now try to flush that one out .
Peter S | August 17, 2014 |
While the previous government and the current government have made decisions on this issue that we may not agree with, this is a political and emotionally charged issue for the citizens of Southwest Nova. Thank you for asserting a very frank assessment that this is a political discussion. While many may have wished a different operator or a different outcome, we do need to give the current operator sufficient time to see if a go can be made of the situation. Otherwise no experienced operator in future will take a service Maine – Nova Scotia seriously, and we will be no better off than we were in 2011. Many Nova Scotians think that this is an easy business to be in, but it is not; the cold hard reality is that we are competing in a global tourism market for scarce post-economic crisis tourism dollars. So patience is necessary.
Mary R Brooks | August 15, 2014 |