Is anyone really surprised? Really?
Between the inability to bring in attractions and grand site seeing for the area, it’s a wonder why the cruise ships came here in the first place. I’m surprised they didn’t pull out last year.
Thinks we need a new head of Tourism Prince Rupert,need some new blood and ideas.
[quote=“Speakuppr”]
With Herb Pond’s features no doubt… the one who also gave us CityWest…[/quote]
Well I have had issues with some of the past Mayor’s efforts in days gone by, but really when it came to tourism Mr. Pond at least understood the topic and did some pretty workmanlike things to keep it alive. Can’t really nail this particular problem on his shoulders I wouldn’t think.
Some of the issues in the Cow Bay are associated to the cruise ship dock could be put on his watch (the big parking lot that never became the boutique shops and such of grand dreams) but he at least was out there making the effort to build up the tourism industry in his time in office, going so far as to even greet the tourists on occasion.
Despite his quotes in the Northern View today, I can’t say that the current mayor has the same understanding of the tourism sector as the past one did.
The way things are going around here these days, the Pond years may actually seem like our halcyon ones of the last decade or so!
it would be interesting to see in a poll, even with all the history of the last ten years or so to judge from, which Mayor the locals would vote for today if an election were held, Mayor Mussallem or Mayor Pond?
Yeah, it wasn’t a literal question beckoning for replies but, I’d vote Pond in a heartbeat. Someone should ask him when he’s running for Mayor again.
Well ok lets make it a literal question I’ll do up a poll, be sure to log on and cast your vote again.
OK it’s up and running, ladies and gentlemen start your engines!
Good I’d rather do without all the turkeys standing in the street and the big boats ruining my view !
LOL yeah I feel sad that the efforts of so many have run aground, with the future nonexistance of cruise ships but you have a point there, most really don’t spend that much, so are we really losing anything? Many shops down town never made enough from the ship to justify staying open… I often think that most of the money spent at cow bay is from the locals anyway?
While Norwegian cruiselines pulling out of Prince Rupert does not surprise me, after reading and hearing about the complaints that passengers have had, I can’t help but wonder how they marketed our community to their customers. Rupert isn’t a shopping destination for the local area let alone for a couple of thousand touristy americans a week. We know that shopping definitely isn’t one of our strengths so why is it that visitors are disappointed by the lack of it? What were they expecting to get up here anyways? It seems to me that some more emphasis on our actual strengths may have not left so many people with a bad taste in their mouths. We are surrounded by natural beauty with mountains, lakes, rivers, ocean, wildlife and perhaps if there was more demand for excursions rather than shopping more potential operators may have been encouraged to open up shop. To be fair, I suppose that there has to be something for everyone, including shopping, so perhaps we’re better deisgned to handle smaller ships that revolve around eco-tourism that could make the most of what we have to offer. Perhaps this would allow for there to be some more positive fedback about our community as I’ve seen more than a few online reviews about visiting our community that were less than favourable. Just a thought.
Another question that I have is why threre has not been more done to captialize on the American history in Prince Rupert? Americans are very patriotic and I’m sure that if there was an opportunity to travel to some of the historic sites such as Barrett Point, the thousand stairs and Roosevelt Park, and learn more about their nations activiy in WWII, while fueling their patriotism, could only be good. Of course there would have to be investment and a commitment by the city, the port authority, etc. to clean up some of these sites but it could be done. We can’t expect to just have the ship drop off their passengers and have them empty their wallets here. For anything to succeed it takes an investment in our community…a reason for them to be excited about being here. I can’t say with any certainty that Victoria, Nanaimo or Campbell River don’t have an American WWII history to draw from but I know that we do.
Well we knew this day would come, after next year we will not be a stop for Norwegian Cruise Lines. They are picking Victoria over us…Surprise, surprise. Wonder what the City and the Chamber of Commerce will have to say about this.
" OOPS didn’t realize this topic was already on here. "
Cookie, there were some people I knew who put their names forward, but council decided on the Tourism Committee to reinstate those on from the previous years. Again, they make their decisions are made from the recommendations they receive from management. Let’s not forget those councilors who have been there for a number of terms, they must be aware of the situation. Do they not receive reports from their own General Manager? Has anyone really seen a full report?
I am not surprised as we look how PRT has branded our community. With all the negative comments over the past years, one would think they would wake up and smell the coffee and do something to change it. 3 million dollars went towards that dock from the community. Our council has renewed Gord Howie’s contract so really people, are you surprised? I am not.
As for next year’s elections, what else will increase for the taxpayers before the election? ie 5% increase for the landfill for the next 3 yrs.
the problem is we were only a stop to bypass american regulations, by having one foreign stop they don’t have to meet american rules, plain and simple, second when you go on a trip and your last stop before Rupert is Vancouver and have around 4 hours to wait, do you go out and see the city or just linger at the airport and wait for the plane?, and wasn’t it this summer where the cruise ship lines were saying the same thing about Victoria, nothing to do shops close up early etc etc etc., if you can’t find anything to do there then there is something wrong.
Well, for starters, if I have 4 hours to wait for a plane in Vancouver, I would be terribly tempted to grab the shuttle or a cab and go speed shopping or just take in the sites but I would undoubtedly miss my flight! Even though we were only a regulation stop for the cruise ships, we could have put more of an effort into showing them off the sites of the area, or at least at welcoming them in general. Cow Bay was condemned by some downtown merchants as the only place they would stay to shop and eat etc., well, they gave them a little of what they wanted and on a beautiful day, I stay down there also. They took them on bus tours around town, I live on 11th.E, and saw the buses slowly “touring” down my street! I think they have seen homes before ! But you are right, If you can’t find anything to do, there is something wrong and there is, it is called a lax tourism board and a don’t give a damn city council!
[quote=“codybear933”]
Well, for starters, if I have 4 hours to wait for a plane in Vancouver, I would be terribly tempted to grab the shuttle or a cab and go speed shopping or just take in the sites but I would undoubtedly miss my flight! Even though we were only a regulation stop for the cruise ships, we could have put more of an effort into showing them off the sites of the area, or at least at welcoming them in general. Cow Bay was condemned by some downtown merchants as the only place they would stay to shop and eat etc., well, they gave them a little of what they wanted and on a beautiful day, I stay down there also. They took them on bus tours around town, I live on 11th.E, and saw the buses slowly “touring” down my street! I think they have seen homes before ! But you are right, If you can’t find anything to do, there is something wrong and there is, it is called a lax tourism board and a don’t give a damn city council![/quote]
Good points, esp the one about the bus tour… I knew the whole cruise ship thing would become a white elepant and it has…
The nature of tourism is to have things that are interesting and changing… Rupert was just a required stop, I mean we even had at least one ship come in weekly and the passengers never left the ship… Bruce Wiehart in many ways is not affective in his role of tourism head, but even he can only do so much… I could never see building a large infastructure for use by the cruise ship passengers, it is too seasonal, how would things survive outside the season? Even as it is I personally don’t think that passengers spend much while they are here, I could be wrong but I just don’t see it. Alaskan ports do well, but it is an Alaskan Cruise after all and they some days get several ships at once so there is volume. Most of the Alaskan infastructure is owned by the cruise lines, their employees go work in southern areas during the winter, we dont have that here, owners could not survive the winters here. Cowbay survives year round, but if were to get any larger I dont think it could on a year round basis, although I know its the locals that keep it going and not seasonal tourism. They benefit from the fact there is nothing down town… We are not a shopping place, so don’t market us as such. cowbay has some good offerings, but down town there is nothing for us much less for tourists. I have spoken to passengers who did like their stop here as it got away from comericalism and they enjoyed the beauty of our town. However overall it’s clear we just did not offer them enough and they have moved on, Victoria is also very close to Seattle, so from a scheduling aspect it may work better for the lines as well. I will let city council off the hook for this one, they have had more urgent matters to deal with than worrying about the dam cruise ships…
[quote=“ThePodunkian”]
With Herb Pond’s features no doubt… the one who also gave us CityWest…
Despite his quotes in the Northern View today, I can’t say that the current mayor has the same understanding of the tourism sector as the past one did.
?[/quote]
Fair enough, But saying Pond was a better mayor than Jacko is damning him with faint praise.
I would agree with you on this aspect if it were the responsibility of Tourism Prince Rupert, however; the Port Authority holds this sole repsonsibility in conjunction with the City. My $0.02
[quote=“Roomer”]
I would agree with you on this aspect if it were the responsibility of Tourism Prince Rupert, however; the Port Authority holds this sole repsonsibility in conjunction with the City. My $0.02[/quote]
Well, an amazing amount of conjecture on this subject of cruise in 2012. However, I have to completely disagree with the port having sole responsibility. Globally, cruise destinations are partnerships between local government, tourism boards and the services needed to bring in the ships (BIA’s, port authorities, port agencies, stevedoring, pilotage, etc). To think the port should take sole responsibility is the exact problem we have been dealing with from the start; ownership of the business, accountability for its success and failure, as a result of partnership between stakeholders in the community.
Stakeholders you ask? The port, the city, TPR, local retailers, port agents, stevedores, government services. First Nations, the port and locals alike through tour operations and local attractions such as North Pacific and the Museum have had to take on the daunting task of marketing not only themselves but the entire community, with increasing tour volumes and new programs in an effort to fill gaps left a lack of independent guest activities, for the majority of guests electing not to go on tour when they come to port.
Tourism Prince Rupert is a destination marketing organization, so questions around what they have done to market to cruise guests to visit Prince Rupert are their domain; it is a lot to ask a DMO to not only take care of marketing but also manage operations on the ground in a destination, let them use their resources to ensure the brand of Prince Rupert is unique and competitive in the Alaska and BC cruise theaters, and that we can deliver on our brand.
The port has repeatedly communicated they are communicating with cruiselines to try and get them to bring ships to Prince Rupert, but what message has been given to them in terms of branding for Prince Rupert, it’s appeal as a destination, beautification in the region of the cruise dock, activities to engage guests and tell the story of Prince Rupert’s past history and current activity? And before anyone quips that it’s in the self-interest of the port to support and market its own operations, you would be woefully uninformed in terms of what costs are involved and who benefits when a cruiseship pulls in every week.
On the flip side, I was on Holland America’s website last week and found they are calling to Prince Rupert in 2012. Didn’t take me long to find it, and wonder how the CBC’s research team missed that gem when they stated “not a single guest will be walking off a ship in Prince Rueprt in 2012”…
went to their website and couldn’t find any port of call for Rupert only seen the one for Victoria maybe you can post the link showing it?
Not feeling too optimistic that anything will change. Mr Wisharts responce to things that could be done was basically along the lines of,I’m not sure what to do about it. Not sure how long he been in that position, seems like a little late to be now asking for the publics assistance.
Prince Rupert has natural beauty, former fishing industry, and Native history. As far as Im concerned we should clean up the waterfront near the old Canadian Fishing dock and make it a place to have firepits and have some kind of different rocks put in so people can possible have a picnic type setting.
As for the native aspect I am not sure what could be done, possibly having an area where you almost make like a mini reserve on the waterfront, somewhere that natives could go to have proper facilities and access to smoke fish, can fish, dry fish, or have an open fire to cook fish. Possibly a place to carve or do artwork on the same site, so people can have a glimpse into native culture in 1 location.
We must not forget that CN owns the majority of the waterfront… The old red warehouse area is soon be used for container storage.
Cannot see much change ever happening in the area of things for tourists in that area… People should of seen this one coming…
We have the beauty but people see that all through the cruise… Victoria has much more to offer, so it’s not rocket science why the last ship to remain here made the change to match other lines and other runs by the same company… The change was based at least in part by passenger surveys… Rupert put too many eggs in one basket, and now we will have a white elephant on the water front…