MRDT Stakeholder Survey Highlights 2023( from 2023 Annual Report)
Tourism Fernie 2023 Annual Report
2023 MRDT Stakeholder Survey of 2022 Programs
Tourism Fernie’ s Annual MRDT Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey, a requirement of the Province of BC, was sent to 151 stakeholders in Tourism Fernie’ s Industry database. The purpose of the survey is to 1. Assess the level of awareness of Tourism Fernie’ s activities, 2. Assess the level of satisfaction with the use of MRDT funds. The survey, managed by The Web Advisors, took place in spring of 2023 after the Annual General Meeting and had a 36 % response rate. Key results, insights and observations are detailed below.
Key Insights & Observations for Tourism Fernie from Survey Results
• Support for Tourism Fernie’ s current sustainability initiatives and importance of continuing and growing organization’ s role and initiatives in sustainability, responsible travel and behaviour, conservation and communications.
• Continue and grow support for tourism infrastructure and amenities projects that support visitation and the visitor experience( trails, river, parking, trailheads etc).
• Expand support for tourism events, festivals, sporting events and animation initiatives that support visitation and the visitor experience.
• Growing marketing and support for arts, culture, heritage, LGTBQ, inclusive, film tourism & experiences.
• Helping to identify and develop options for things to do when the weather is an issue( cold, heat, rain, smoke, lack of snow, etc).
• Continue to support access and transportation initiatives, travel media and travel trade with long-haul market development.
• Fernie needs a big new attraction.
• More business / marketing learning programs like the ULearning initiative
• Cohesive community brand development. Importance of Fernie’ s authenticity and story. Importance of working together.
• Continuing to grow shoulder season business.
• Growth in accommodation business wasn’ t standard across other tourism businesses. TC Energy filled many rooms but many workers couldn’ t and didn’ t shop, dine and do activities like many visitors do, so some local businesses didn’ t met their financial goals for the year.
A Few Final Comments from Stakeholders about Tourism Fernie
•“ Thanks for all you do.”
•“ Fantastic group of people to work with.”
•“ Keep up the great work Tourism Fernie”
•“ Great work, and thank you for the survey.”
•“ It may be time to examine tourism’ s impacts on the community and environment. Ever-increasing tourism numbers are not sustainable without the infrastructure in place to handle it.”
•“ In my opinion, optically, it seemed like TF was supporting the pipeline project here and the strain it’ s putting on everything. I was confused by this, its hurt tourism, I expected more of a fight to push them to stay somewhere else. Just my thoughts. Maybe TF did, but optically it seemed like they were happy and trying to convince me that I should be happy. The pipeline project is hurting my business.”
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