No New Deal For Tourism Moose Jaw This Year
By Robert Thomas
Tourism might be a booming business following two years of COVID - 19 pandemic restrictions but Tourism Moose Jaw is looking for additional help, a lifeline, to keep their operations alive and healthy.
A lifeline for not only their tourism marketing efforts but also for building maintenance but also looming major repairs and renovations to their tourism centre.
At Monday afternoon’s special Budget 2024 Council meeting a request was made to not only see Tourism Moose Jaw’s marketing better funded but their tourism centre’s (located on Thatcher Drive East) maintenance and renewal a City funded operation.
“Certainly we think as Team Moose Jaw when we think about economic development and tourism it is important we have a good close relationship with them and all parties in the city. So certainly these are some issues that are going to be coming forward to City Council in the future,” Jim Puffalt city manager said introducing the potential Budget 2023 initiative.
Puffalt said the issue went further than Tourism Moose Jaw asking the City simply to take over the maintenance and repairs of the Tourism Centre as already done in other facilities. But was also about marketing Moose Jaw and economic development.
“On building and maintenance and the other one is a little bit better of a relationship between us and more coordinating of our marketing and other advertising activities,” he said about what was being asked.
Recreation director Derek Blais said Tourism Moose Jaw was looking for the changes largely due to the age of the building and the costs to make major repairs over the next five to ten years. Tourism Moose Jaw is looking for parity with other City-owned facilities.
“Tourism Moose Jaw has approached the City about potentially amending their lease agreement as well as their fee for service agreement with the City to align with agreements that are in place with the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre and Moose Jaw Art Museum and Art Gallery,” recreation director Derek Blais told Council.
“They are concerned about the increasing costs of maintaining their building and site. And they fear tourism services they provide could be affected if they must fully fund all of the maintenance renewal projects for their building,” Blais said.
“They also want to explore opportunities to increase their annual funding that goes towards some of the marketing initiatives that they lead for the city,” he said, adding “they do not have a building caretaker or in-house expertise when it comes to property and building maintenance. And they would like to work with us when it comes to exploring opportunities to expand in that area. Especially with many renewal projects they are going to require in the next five to ten (10) years,” he said.
Tourism Moose Jaw’s Present Funding Explained
In 2023 Tourism Moose Jaw is set to receive $97,680 in annual funding from the City from a total budget of $382,643.
The remaining 74 percent of Tourism Moose Jaw’s funding comes from student and government grants, donations, sponsorships, merchandise sales and tourism related initiatives such as trolley tours.
The annual building and maintenance costs are approximately $45,000 which leaves Tourism Moose Jaw with approximately $52,000 for tourism marketing initiatives.
Tourism Moose Jaw’s building is just over 20 years old leading to mechanical issues, roofing and flooring which will require replacement over the next five to ten years. The replacement and repairs are estimated to be about $500,000, Blais said.
Tourism Moose Jaw has $15,000 set aside in reserves for the repairs.
What Other Communities Pay Their Tourism Promoters
Blais said when it comes to other communities who provide funding to their local tourism boards Moose Jaw pays below average on a per capita basis.
“What we found is the average per capita support for tourism agencies that do provide support for tourism is about $5.33 per resident with Moose Jaw below that average at $2.90,” Blais said.
It needs to be noted although Moose Jaw pays less than per capita average of other communities there are in fact a number of communities surveyed which pay nothing to out of house tourism agencies.
The numbers quoted in Blais presentation are only for those communities who provide support to their tourism promotion agencies, communities surveyed without a local tourism promoter or funding were not included in the average. (See chart below).
Tourism funding per capita in other centres - source City of Moose Jaw report
Blais said Administration was recommending to take 2023 to review Tourism Moose Jaw’s lease and fee for service agreement and a report be brought to the 2024 (next year’s) Budget discussions.
“That will provide a full year to complete the review and allow the City and Tourism Moose Jaw to review all available options. If Council is in support of providing support to Tourism Moose Jaw in 2023 we did provide four options within the report,” he said.
Four Options To Fund In 2023 Budget
The four options include:
A temporary (one time) increase in funding.
A $30,000 option would include an additional $10,000 for marketing services and $20,000 to get help with an expert in property repair and maintenance
A simple $10,000 increase for tourism marketing initiatives.
2. Increase funding by $30,000 in 2023 - $10,000 for marketing and $20,000 for building maintenance - and develop a plan for the City to support capital renewal projects in 2024. A detailed capital plan would be developed in 2023.
3. Increase funding by $100,000 to support the building maintenance costs and capital renewal costs. This option would include $10,000 for tourism marketing, $20,000 for building maintenance and $70,000 annually towards capital upgrades.
4. No additional money in 2023 but the City would take over building maintenance and capital projects in 2024.
Option four would mean hiring new staff to look after the Tourism Moose Jaw facility.
“This one (option 4) to develop a similar model we see at the (Moose Jaw) Cultural Centre and the (Moose Jaw) Art Gallery. With this type of model it will likely cost more than just provide an increase in annual funding as our department if we were to take over the maintenance and cleaning would mean we would have to acquire the necessary staff. It is not just something we can just pass off to our existing staff,” he said.
“We have reached our capacity when it comes to that. Any additional support we provide would come with a staffing ask as well as an utility costs, maintenance supply costs and all of those types of things,” Blais said.
Council’s Response
The majority of Councillor’s who spoke in favour of Administration’s recommendation asked that the issue come back to Council before the 2024 Budget discussions to allow a better look and debate on the issue.
Councillor Heather Eby said she was in favour of Administration’s recommendation to defer it to 2024 budget discussions.
“Personally I would like to see it (a report) a little bit before budget. I think it would be better to have it in September so that we could really look it over and have some time to really think it through depending on what the results of the review are,” Councillor Eby said.
“I think it will be bigger than one just to come to the budget table and we have to figure it out there,” she said.
Councillor Doug Blanc said he saw tourism as important but he supported the recommendation because there were other factors in play and not just Tourism Moose Jaw. Other facilities the City actually owned and require major repairs and upgrades to remain viable.
“We have had other groups come forward and say they are looking for money to maintain their buildings that we own. We own the building (such as) the Cosmo Centre. They are looking for some major funding there….I am not opposed looking at it but I think maybe at the same time we need to look at some of our other buildings that we own and lease out to other organizations even if it is for a a dollar a year,” Councillor Blanc said.
“We own those infrastructures. I don’t think we want them to get to the point where they just become a hindrance and become one of the nuisance properties we have to deal with,” he said.
At the present time the land where Tourism Moose Jaw and Mac The Moose sit on are owned by City and leased to Tourism Moose Jaw. Tourism Moose Jaw owns the tourism centre.
Councillor Crystal Froese saw a one year deferral as “a good opportunity to have a conversation with the tourism board on their direction and what they see as for themselves as well.”
Councillor Froese said most of the organizations using City facilities “probably only pay a dollar” a year to lease the facility and were set up years ago “but in that time none of them have really set aside money….to try to maintain it the best they could.”
The lack of any type of building maintenance reserve funds make it a burden at the present time to repair and renovate the facilities, she said.
She felt it was a good time to review all agreements - and not just Tourism Moose Jaw’s - and also an opportunity to work with Tourism on their marketing strategy for the city as a whole.
Councillor Froese said she would like to see the agreement re-visited as early as the spring to allow a much better opportunity to properly review any potential significant change “before we even get to the Budget chair.”
Lone Voice In Support Of 2023 Option
Councillor Kim Robinson said what concerned him was the “54 percent underfunding based upon the $5.33 average” mentioned in Administration’s report.
“I think that right now we are funding Tourism Moose Jaw at $97,000 and it looks like it should be $180,000 by the averages of other centres,” Councillor Robinson said.
“They do so much it is difficult for us to put a finger on it. There are Sidewalk Days and the economic benefits that brings to our city. A lot of cities have their own tourism as part of their econ(omic) development,” he said.
Councillor Robinson said he was voting in support of Administration’s recommendation but it was “unfortunate we are just kicking the can down the road for another year and not giving them anymore money.”
“The Cosmo (senior citizens centre) only pay a dollar a year for that building and they don’t bring in a lot of tourists to Moose Jaw. Unfortunate but that is the way it will be for another year.”
It needs to be noted in the case of the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre and Moose Jaw Art Gallery the City holds the right - although they have not used it as of yet - to appoint the majority of the board on both third party entities.
The structure is set up to ensure the City has veto powers to move in, set policies and operate both of the City owned facilities.
It is not known if such a structure would be emplaced on the Moose Jaw Tourism.
In a unanimous 7 - 0 vote Council chose to put the matter over to the 2024 Budget discussions to allow Administration to examine and review the present lease and funding agreement.