A U.S. environmental group’s “Rethink Alberta” campaign did not dissuade people from visiting the province last year, Alberta’s travel-marketing agency says.
Even as Corporate Ethics International, the organization behind Rethink Alberta, prepares for a more aggressive assault in 2011, results from its 2010 effort show it didn’t damage the hotels, restaurants and cultural institutions, said Bruce Okabe, chief executive of Travel Alberta.
“After much hue and cry about what this would actually do to our industry, it’s had virtually no impact on tourism in Alberta,” Okabe said.
The Rethink Alberta campaign was launched last summer in four U.S. cities and London, England, urging potential tourists to avoid Alberta due to the province’s oilsands policies. It featured digital billboards and a web-based video that showed pictures of dead ducks and oily tailings ponds around Fort McMurray.
Worry about the campaign escalated when an Angus Reid poll found that people who watched the video showed a sharp decline in their desire to visit the province. An Angus Reid pollster suggested there could be “devastating” effects to Alberta if the video became widely distributed through social media networks.
Okabe, however, said his agency has collected a variety of evidence showing the concern has been largely overblown.
Travel Alberta staff have tracked the campaign’s progress on social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and found people posted about 1,740 comments in response – a very small number compared with the overall populations in Canada, the United States and United Kingdom, he said. Of those comments, 75 per cent were neutral about the campaign, while the other 25 per cent were split between positive and negative views, he said.
In addition, none of the province’s hotels or resorts have reported any cancelled bookings as a result of the effort, Okabe said.
“We have branch offices in London, England and in Berlin, Germany, and in the United States, and we’ve asked the tour operators there how much impact it’s had: None.”
In at least one case, the anti-oilsands publicity may have actually been a boon to the travel industry. Okabe said the Fort McMurray tourism bureau has reported an increase in business in 2010, including a doubling of people wanting a tour of the oilsands.
“All of this has created a very, very small ripple, and the farther away from Alberta and Canada you get, the less interested people are,” Okabe said. “Having said that, we can’t completely pooh-pooh this. We have to be cognizant of the message and what the impact might be.”
A spokesman for Corporate Ethics International -a San Francisco-based organization representing 10 environmental groups – said he expects the campaign to pick up momentum this year.
Michael Marx said his group knew the 2010 effort would have little impact on tourism and was designed mainly as a message to the Alberta government to change its ways. That’s why the campaign was launched midsummer, after most travellers had committed to their holidays.
That strategy will change in 2011, Marx said. Not only is Corporate Ethics International looking to double its spending and expand into new countries, the campaign will likely be launched earlier in the year before people have made their travel arrangements, he said.
“We did not want the campaign to have an impact on the tourist industry in its first year,” Marx said. “The intention was really to fire a shot over the bow of the Government of Alberta to tell them that it’s time to stop the public relations and start the dialogue on how to manage the tarsands. They haven’t done so.”
Marx said his organization would consider backing off if the province commits to improved environmental monitoring, caps the amount of production allowed and bans new oilsands developments until better controls are in place to limit pollution and carbon emissions.
Erin Larson, a spokeswoman for Alberta Tourism, Parks and Recreation, said the government has no particular concerns about Rethink Alberta and is focused on correcting any “misinformation” about the oilsands. She said the “Tell it Like it is” campaign, which featured billboards in New York and London last year, will continue in some form.
Okabe said overall tourism revenue in Alberta, including revenue from U.S. and U.K. visitors, was projected to be down in 2010, but that’s due a struggling global economy. The numbers are expected to pick up in 2011.
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