Evidence of meeting #19 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was artists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Tourism Commission
We love unfettered access into Canada from all over the world. Air travel has a significant impact on bringing customers into our country and bringing them to see our music festivals and all of our other experiences, so we love it.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I look forward to present at the transport committee.
But in this sense, it's just one piece. If you can imagine, every successful destination has three things working in concert: marketing, access, and product. The marketing piece has to be done in development with access being, in this particular question, aviation access, but the product has to be there as well. Unless all three of those are working in concert, pardon the pun, no destination will be successful. It's an important piece but not a seminal one.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
How do we measure marginal revenue, Mark, if you might comment on this? How can we say that by investing an extra $100,000 in a music festival, we can produce $1 million in revenues for Canadians. How do you make that kind of an association?
Executive Director, RBC Ottawa Bluesfest
It's actually quite easy to measure through economic impact studies. We measure the visitors now with the technology we have in terms of the sale of tickets and entries and so on. We know exactly where the visitors are coming from.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Greg, do you want to comment on that? Marginal revenue based on marketing dollars?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Tourism Commission
We do exactly the same thing. We do what we call conversion studies. We identify how much we've invested in a marketing program. We then measure those people who saw the marketing program and those who came as a result and we're able to measure meaningful ROI on all of our marketing investments. We know the impact that we have.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Do you want to add to that, Dave?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I'd say exactly the same as the two gentlemen, and I'll just add that Mr. Klassen's ROI methodology has been vetted by Treasury Board, so it's solid methodology.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
All right. If I have 30 seconds, I'm going to split with Rick here.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
David, I want to follow up on something. The reason we wanted to have the tourism folks here is to talk about the fact that, as you heard from the previous presenters, when you're trying to get into the industry now, you're just trying to make a living. It's not about sales of your albums any more, your songs. It's about being able to go out and tour, about being able to promote yourself. You keep referring back to the fact that you want to bring Americans or people from other parts of the world into Canada. That's the tourism responsibility. I understand that.
It's multi-dimensional, though, from a music perspective. We want Canadians to come out and witness Canadian music for two reasons. One is to understand how great Canadian music is, and two is to support the people who are in the industry within Canada.
I just wondered if you guys could comment a little more on the whole aspect. Mark laid it out very well in terms of the festivals, in terms of the direction that it needs to take. I don't know whether it's about partnering with Music Canada. I don't know how we grow the festival side of it, but could you all just speak to the fact that we need to get Canadians out to view Canadian music?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Again, that's 80% of the market, number one. And number two—and I think Mark spoke about this—the big acts are the big draw, but that's what gives room for the smaller acts to be on the venue. That's how they're going to get exposure to Canadians but also to international audiences as well.
You're right that it's the touring and the exposure that they're going to get through performance, but they're not going to be able to reach those audiences through some of the digital means, or they're not going to be able to get the promotion through some of the digital means without these important festivals.
I agree, Mr. Dykstra, our Canadian audiences are important, but the incremental dollars to the Canadian economy are not only important to the tourism sector but are going to give that exposure to not just the big acts, but the up-and-coming emerging artists who are participating as well.
Executive Director, RBC Ottawa Bluesfest
My comment is that I see things globally. I think when you engage the community, obviously what David's saying is true: 70-80% is Canadians coming out to see them, but it's proliferation of these large-scale events, which draws both locals and tourists alike, and that helps the whole industry. It helps the music industry, it helps the tourism industry, and it really, honestly, creates a bigger overall industry in Canada.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gord Brown
Thank you very much.
We're going to move to Ms. Mathyssen for seven minutes.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, Mr. Klassen, Mr. Monahan, and Mr. Goldstein, for being here. I think you've provided a really important and interesting dynamic to this study because I think, as you've clearly indicated, that all of this fits together. There is no silo, no isolation, when it comes to how we support our communities, whether it's in the tourist trade, the kid trying to find a summer job at the local park, or the artist—the brilliant artist—who creates fabulous music.
I have a number of questions, and I hope that you'll all just jump in.
I'll start though with you, Mr. Monahan, in regard to the issue of funding and support. It seems to me that you're talking about funding security, that you need to know that no matter what, there is going to be that foundation, that secure funding over a long period of time.
It seems to me that you've perhaps suggested moving around the existing pot to increase grants where there's a desired outcome, and also to just make sure that perhaps there is that increase in granting. I wonder if you could talk about how that is important in terms of the future of the industry.
Executive Director, RBC Ottawa Bluesfest
First of all, your question is a very good one.
There's one thing that's missing from the federal funding picture right now, and that's a focus on economic development. Right now, Heritage is giving money out to various priorities and some have economic development as a priority maybe down the list, but Canada arts presentation, other funds are not really focusing on the deliverables like economic development and tourism as it relates to these destination music events. And that's the one piece that's missing. Provincially in Ontario there are funds. Provincially in Quebec and other provinces, there are funds. But on a federal level, what's missing is the piece to say, what are you going to do for us to make an impact in Canada? And I'm specifically saying about not-for-profits who are organizing these destination music events, we need that support in order to go out and do the things that we're trying to do. And that's have free events for the public, keep the costs low. All these things draw tremendous numbers of tourists but they also create larger events, and that's where we are lacking right now in competitiveness with other countries. We are not able to play ball. We're faced with a very competitive industry and we need to grow the industry and we've identified the leaders. FAME has identified 15 festivals contributing $1.1 billion. These are the winners. You've got to ride with the winners. Fund with the winners and you'll get the biggest impact.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
And I understand that.
In London, Ontario, we've got a couple of quite interesting festivals. We have Sunfest just after July 1. London is a city of 365,000 people and on that extended weekend, Sunfest will draw more than 200,000 people. It's just growing incrementally. And of course we have Home County, which features a lot of really wonderful local talent.
Now one of the things that I was curious about, the folks at Sunfest said because they don't charge admission, they can't access federal money. If there was a fee to come into the park, then they would be eligible. I don't understand that. I wonder if you could help me with that, why the federal government wouldn't support that incredibly successful festival when they're bringing in nearly a quarter of a million people into a medium-sized town. And those people are spending like crazy.
Executive Director, RBC Ottawa Bluesfest
The only thing I would comment is I'm not familiar with why they wouldn't receive funding. I don't see why they wouldn't. But the point is, as a free event they need to be supported. If they're having that economical impact, they should be supported in a big way. If they're having that kind of effect in the community in drawing people in, they should be funded.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Yes, I quite agree. And I've written letters asking for that kind of support because it has become in 20 years the signature event of the summer.
Executive Director, RBC Ottawa Bluesfest
But you see, one of the problems is that there isn't a fund at a federal level that promotes economic development in music. If there was, they'd be getting funding.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Okay.
Mr. Goldstein, I was very interested in your comment on the issue around Canada's international visitation growth rate. It's only 1.5% compared to 5% globally. Has it always been that low or has the erosion happened because of 9/11, the thickening of the border, or is there something else at work here? I was wondering about visa restrictions because that's another problem that comes across my desk all the time, people desperately wanting to bring in their relatives for family events, and they can't. There's that barrier and it seems to dissuade a lot of families. Is that a significant problem?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Yes, and I also would look forward to having that discussion with the Immigration committee. But in fact, we have. Your colleagues at the Citizenship and Immigration committee just actually did a very thorough report on that very issue and we're awaiting a response from the government.
As I said earlier, we would put visitor facilitation like visas and air access under the access bucket. So again going back to marketing, access, and product, those are the three pillars that we require. And this has really been a ten-year phenomenon. To the heart of your question, you can say this began with 9/11, but there's been a series of issues that flowed past 9/11 whether its SARS or the economic downturn, all of those things are turning around. That's number one.
Number two, just to give you a global perspective and if you'll imagine it this way, 10 or 15 years ago there were places on the planet that either couldn't afford to travel or weren't allowed to travel. So there's a huge demographic that is eagerly travelling the world right now which is why internationally, I think as Mr. Klassen or I said earlier, this is the fourth fastest growing sector on the planet right now. So there's ample opportunity. If we get the marketing, access, and product pieces all aligned, we're actually an extremely competitive destination.