Olympic blitz cost Alberta nearly $1M

Alberta spent nearly $1 million to promote itself at the London Olympics — a far cry from the $84,000 the government initially announced last summer and nearly double the $518,000 revealed last week.

In addition to a provincial delegation that included Premier Alison Redford, two other ministers and a host of performers and artists, Travel Alberta sent its own delegation to the U.K. to promote the province at a cost of $400,000, Travel Alberta CEO Bruce Okabe told the Herald this week.

He defended the Crown corporation’s expenditure and pointed out the organization is funded separately through a four per cent tourism tax levied on hotel rooms in the province.

“We’re spending about $400,000 to protect $100 million worth of business,” he said.

But opposition parties questioned why the province needed to send two delegations to the Summer Games at a total cost of $918,000 when the province is facing a $3-billion deficit this year.

Last week, they slammed the announced half-million-dollar cost of the London mission and expressed outrage when it was revealed the province spent nearly $114,000 on London hotel rooms it didn’t use.

“Obviously this entire trip has been just one big boondoggle and appears to be an excuse to spend taxpayers’ money,” Wildrose critic Rob Anderson said Thursday.

“It is hard for me to believe this $1 million was well spent,” Anderson said.

He disputed Travel Alberta’s contention that the money doesn’t come from taxpayers.

The levy is collected by the province and split 80-20 between Travel Alberta and the Tourism and Recreation Ministry that is responsible for the arms-length Crown corporation.

“They are spending tax money that is not to be used for junkets but for actual promotion of tourism,” Anderson said. “I don’t think a contingent of folks from Travel Alberta going to London at the most expensive time possible is going to get the best bang for the buck.”

NDP Leader Brian Mason said he also doesn’t understand the reason for the duplication.

“Travel Alberta is quasi independent but, quite frankly, it has to be seen as essentially taxpayers’ money because it gets funding from the hotel tax and that’s paid by people who use hotels, which is a lot of Albertans,” he said. “It is starting to look like a pretty big misuse of taxpayers’ money.”

Mason was also skeptical the mission will yield the benefits being touted by Tourism Minister Christine Cusanelli and Travel Alberta.

Tourism Department spokeswoman Katrina Bluetchen said the two delegations were necessary because it was important for the government to show its commitment to growing Alberta’s tourism industry.

“Travel Alberta is out there meeting with the top executives in their industry,” she said. “For many of those executives, it is important to see government standing behind the industry that we’re asking them to invest in. It sends a clear message that we’re ready to do business and that we’re very serious about it.”

She said there was no redundancy in having two groups of Albertans wooing European tour operators.

“Tourism is an increasingly important part of Alberta’s economy,” she said. “It’s a big industry in the province already and there’s plenty of room for us to grow. It is an area where we think we can realize real gains and reaching out to the world is the best way to bring the world to our doorstep.”

Okabe said Cusanelli attended most of the 30 meetings Travel Alberta arranged with tour operators and was “an integral part of our overall mission over there.”

“I personally feel the weight of her office brought some folks that we wouldn’t normally get. I would say the same thing about the premier. Anytime you bring those people to a business meeting, the tour operators know that we’re serious about doing business with them.”

Travel Alberta sent six people to London to build relationships at the CEO level with major tour partners, to close the deal with Dertour — a tourism operator in Germany — to bring 600 travel agents to Alberta next year, to put “the finishing touches” on a world school rugby championship and to close a handful of small joint marketing agreements with a few prominent tour operators in the U.K., Okabe said.

“Really at the end of the day, this is what Travel Alberta does,” he said. “This is what industry expects and this is what industry needs us to do.”

Okabe said the mission was critical to promote Alberta’s $5.5-billion travel industry and its 90,000 employees.

The Dertour deal will generate spending of $400,000 in Alberta next year alone and is expected to boost tourism by 15 to 25 per cent, Okabe said. The school rugby championships in the summer of 2014 are expected to generate $3 million worth of tourism revenue with 10,500 hotel room bookings in Calgary and Edmonton, he added.

About $1 billion of Alberta’s tourism industry revenue comes from abroad, while $4 billion of the revenue comes from visitors from other parts of Canada, Okabe said.