While the focus at Calgary’s city hall lately has been on the 2026 Olympic process, members of the community and protective services committee were told Wednesday the city is losing its competitive edge when it comes to attracting major sports and cultural events to the city.
Despite securing the 2019 Grey Cup last week, Tourism Calgary president Cindy Ady said in a presentation to a city hall committee the lack of facilities is hurting the city.
“We have a great strategy, we have a lot of the right team, we do a lot of the right things but when you don’t have the facility, those that do (other cities) win,” she said. “So we are starting to lose our competitive edge because we’re not in that facilities game right now.”
Councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart said she wants to see a list of the events the city has failed to attract in the past few years.
“Look at the events that you tried to get here but for one reason or another, because of a lack of facilities or a lack of infrastructure, that you weren’t successful,” she said when addressing council.
“It would be a really an important list from you because we need to get this into the food chain.”
City administration is currently working on a multi-year budget which will be presented to council in November. Colley-Urquhart said knowing which events bypassed Calgary and why could make the case to push for funding of capital projects in the budget.
Despite a loss of competitive edge, Tourism Calgary said a record 83 sports and cultural events were sponsored by the organization in 2017, up from 70 in 2016.
Comments