DMO Community Consultation Meeting

The Fernie Destination Marketing Organization, DMO. You probably have heard locals grumbling about this in the streets, coffee shops and alleyways. It has been a hot topic in the past few weeks and on Tuesday August 15th their was a community consultation meeting held at the Fernie Seniors Centre to inform the community of the progress that has been made over the past 3 years of this project and to address any concerns.

Suzanne Denbak (formerly the president of Tourism Whistler) from Cadence Strategies who has been hired as a consultant for the DMO project presented an information and progress report to the packed seniors centre. The presentation touched on the history of the project and looked at the need for a DMO in Fernie, the competitive environment, target markets, marketing and sales priorities of the DMO and touched on the proposed funding and governance models.

Following the presentation members of the community had a chance to input their thoughts on the project, its proposed funding sources and the proposed Tourism Levy. There were many concerns over the proposed mandatory Tourism Levy and how it would affect small businesses. These concerns were recognized by the DMO committee and they hope that with further consultation with businesses that they can develop a schedule of fees that is fair and transparent for all.

While their was many concerned about the proposed funding model, their was much more positive supporting input from the attendees. It can be said that their was a general conscensus among all at the meeting that the Fernie DMO is essential for Fernie to remain competitive in the tourism industry, and that the project is on the right track.

I haven't heard much about the proposed DMO lately and there are no recent updates on their web site. Does anyone know what stage it is at and when it may be implemented?

I have heard that things should start getting off the ground in the summer. They still need to hire a marketing consultant and start on the "branding" and marketing of Fernie as a destination. It's something that needs to be started sooner rather than later if they want to make a presence for the Winter 07/08 season.

The Guest Fulfillment Provider contract (which is the company that runs the booking centre/website and call centre) contract went to RCR. This is apparently public information but I don't believe I've seen this announced anywhere. There was a long process which included RFP's, and then the proposals and then there was a short list, etc. I believe there were about 5 or 6 proposals - 3 of which were local companies - FRE / FCR, OurFernie and RCR (hmmm... don't know if they fall into the "local" category).

The choice was made based on who could fulfill the contract and RCR won.

If anyone believes any of this is wrong, please correct me. As I mentioned, I haven't seen any mention of this anywhere in ages so I just get tidbits of info here and there.

The DMO cannot setup any contracts until the official Board of Directors has properly been voted in. Any agreements that the current "implementation committee" initiates are between them and the contractor and are not contracts with the DMO itself.

I don't feel comfortable knowing that when someone inquires about Fernie that they are talking to someone in Calgary (RCR) who may have not even been to Fernie before. And wouldn't RCR make sure that their "Wolf's Den" was filled up before any other place.... sounds like a conflict of interest to me...

I agree with the above post, but who wouldn't have a conflict of interest? I would much rather see the contract being held locally.

One year on and nothing happening? I've just checked the DMO website and the "current consultations" page lists the community meetings that were being held exactly one year ago - I had to double check as I thought I'd missed a new meeting as the dates were listed as November 7th/8th/9th etc. That's not very current!

Anyone know what is going on?

This morning I heard that there was a meeting this week and the interm board of directors were appointed (basically the people involved to date) and it is set up as a BIA (business improvement area). The acting board of directors will be in place until there is an official vote. That's all I know! Hopefully there is a public meeting soon as I would love to learn more about its progress.

i can't believe that they never updated the website that OurFernie donated to them.. its sooo easy to do that monkeys could do it.

Why not at least remove the outdated info?

Seems to me that they are doing things that they don't want people to know about... why else would they be so secretive for over a year now?

I don't think it has anything to do with trying to keep a secret. I think it has everything to do with the people involved being completely occupied by their own businesses; by there not being any one person in charge of updating the website and communicating with the community; that the work involved has been more than anticipated and that many unexpected road blocks have appeared.

OurFernie did the website with no strings attached. From our perspective it's completely up to the DMO what they do with it. We're just happy if we were able to help.