TCU Place is working to offset a deficit of $888,000 from its 2022 operations.
Tammy Sweeney, CEO of TCU Place said this was expected and the centre budgeted for the deficit.
“We are fortunate enough to be in a situation where we have reserves. We’ve had some very good years over the past 10 years or so and we are using those reserves to fund our deficit right now,” Sweeney said.
TCU Place has approximately $4 million in reserves right now.
“We had budgeted for around a $650,000 deficit because we knew things weren’t going to be back to normal post-COVID and we were still in recovery mode,” said Sweeney.
Most of TCU Place’s events in the beginning of 2022 were cancelled due to the outbreak of the Omicron strain of COVID-19, which resulted in the deficit exceeding the estimated $650,000.
Sweeney said another deficit is forecast for 2023.
“We are still forecasting a deficit because the bulk of our revenue comes from conventions and conferences and those are not back to normal yet… an event that had 1000 people before, has five or 600 now.”
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Seventy-five per cent of TCU’s revenue comes from conferences.
Despite COVID-19 recovery being the main contributing factor to the centre’s deficit, the industry is bringing changes as well.
“The rising prices of everything from travel to food, businesses are struggling right now, they are making choices on what to spend their money on and they are having fewer conferences,” said Sweeney. “The other thing is flights. Flights into Saskatoon have been more difficult.”
With airlines making travel to Saskatoon difficult as of late, TCU Place is focusing on hosting conferences and events for locals, rather than travellers.
For the time being, TCU Place is not cutting staffing or programming despite offsetting the deficit.
“That would be a short-term strategy, it’s not a long-term strategy.”
Sweeney said the centre is doing better than other centres in similar markets, but they it is still expecting an approximate $500, 000 deficit in 2023.
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