Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Michele, you alluded to some of the strategic markets you're looking at. The industry is growing, and there's no disputing the product we have here in Canada from coast to coast to coast. But then you start finding out the numbers. I think I heard correctly that Las Vegas spends just as much on promoting as Canada does; and Australia, with just over two-thirds of the GDP of Canada, is spending way more than we are in promotion and marketing.
So I guess my question is twofold. Is there new clientele out there? Should we be changing our marketing? Do we need more money for marketing, not just from government but from the stakeholders out there--whether it's the bed and breakfasts seeing the relevance of putting a few more dollars into the pot, etc.?
It seems that the provinces all have their own different strategies, and a lot of them are chasing the same dollar. So on the marketing side, if there were more money available from all the stakeholders, would we be able to do better marketing? Should we be looking at marketing Canada differently in this century--maybe from the green side? The whole thing is a different product than we've been marketing before.