Events idea doesn’t gain STEAM with CIC

The city’s Community Issues Committee met Monday afternoon with representatives of the local tourism industry to discuss ways to use the “Sports Economic Assessment Model” (STEAM) sponsored by the Canadian Sports Tourism Alliance to help plan future tourism events in the area.

Enmax Centre manager Kim Gallucci and CSTA STEAM consultant Derek Mager pitched the model to largely skeptical council for over an hour, and left several councillors still questioning the cost-benefit of using STEAM in the city.

STEAM uses predictive algorithms in a special computer program to project the economic benefits of any given tourism event to the City. Municipalities, host organizations or companies can pay for a STEAM assessment to be done before or after an event at a cost of somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 per assessment. Those applying to host an event could use the model and, with the right input information, they might be able to project the potential revenues coming back to the city in more concrete terms.

“I think what council wants,” said Mayor Chris Spearman, after Mager and Gallucci’s presentation to council, “is consistent information. We are sponsoring a number of different events, and we are receiving a number of requests. So we would want up front an objective STEAM calculation, and after the event is over, we want an objective evaluation. I’m not sure having the actual applicants developing the STEAM model is going to be effective for us.”

Mager agreed with Spearman, and other councillors who voiced similar objections, that putting the right input information into the model at the outset is crucial for the model to work properly for those seeking assessment.

“We say garbage in and garbage out,” he stated. “You really need to be conservative on what you put into the model. You don’t want to inflate the (input) numbers ... You want the numbers going into the model to be as good and as accurate as possible, and if you trust the event organizer to make those numbers as clean and as reliable as possible.”

Spearman suggested a possible work-around on this trust issue for the City could be having the Lethbridge Destination Marketing Organization be tasked with doing all local STEAM proposals, should the City decide to go that route. He acknowledged however, council’s overall feeling of skepticism surrounding STEAM.

“It could be the benefit of having these assessments done is offset by the significant cost of doing it,” he said. “We’ll take a look at our options ... But certainly, I am only one member of council and we haven’t made any formal decisions.”

Follow @TimKalHerald on Twitter