Lethbridge councillor concerned over precedent set by DMP

The City of Lethbridge’s move to create a stand-alone organization focused on growing tourism is being met with some opposition.

By a vote of 6-2 Monday, council approved the Destination Management Plan, led by the tourism strategy committee. Coun. Rob Miyashiro was one of two votes against the governance model, but not because it will include a stand-alone entity. Instead, he’s concerned the voices on the tourism committee are not being fully heard.

“We asked community professionals and community members to be a part of the process to develop better ways of doing things,” Miyashiro said. “This took a lot of time and money and then council says, ‘well thank you but we’re going to kind of do it our way.’ Now that we have the plan, we like the plan, but we don’t like the way it was recommended to move ahead.”

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Miyashiro’s concern lies in the fact that the tourism strategy committee’s preferred option was voted down by council. He believes this may have a negative impact on council’s relationship with the community moving forward.

“The perception that we’re creating as a council for the community is: we want to engage you for months and months, but do we really have to listen to you?” Miyashiro said.

The planning process has been underway for over a year, with consultation from a number of community organizations.

The DMP will include a focus on sport tourism and business event planning, but perhaps the biggest change will be the creation of a new, stand-alone organization. What exactly this new organization will look like is still unknown. Whatever it may be, the Chinook County Tourist Association would like to remain actively involved.

“We’ve served Lethbridge and the surrounding area for over 40 years,” Nikolaus Wyslouzil, executive director of the Chinook County Tourist Association, said. “Tourism, marketing, visitor services and other ends to that. So we think there is good opportunity for us to continue with that and keep working with the city on that.”

City administration is now working towards putting together a funding model to help get the DMP implemented by April of 2017.