A total of $2.7-million federal dollars are flowing to nine tourism, film, sustainability and economic development projects across the NWT.
CEO of NWT Tourism Cathie Bolstad says the $1.5-million injection her organization is getting will go a long way to the goal of growing tourism spending from $203-million to $207-million per year by 2021.
“The funding will augment our current marketing activities in Australia, China, Japan, Germany and South Korea.”
French language marketing is also a focus, as well as exploring new markets. “This funding is also enabling us to explore and assess whether Mexico is a potential new market for the Northwest Territories.”
Bolstad says the money will also be used to collect data from tourists who visit the NWT and how much they spend, as well as improve social media and gathering user-generated content.
The $2.7-million investment by the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency announced Wednesday by NWT MP Michael McLeod, will go to the following projects:
- Enhanced tourism research and marketing by NWT Tourism ($1,564,444)
- Promoting tourism and attracting investment from Francophone markets ($284,000)
- Indigenous cultural tourism development workshops in all regions of the NWT ($122,000)
- A project to improve two campgrounds in Wrigley ($31,791)
- A two-year project promoting the NWT film industry and attracting more productions to film in the territory ($200,000)
- A study looking into the possibility of constructing a Gwich’in cultural experience retreat at an unused wellness centre in the Beaufort Delta ($54,240)
- Study and planning for the Northern Centre for Sustainability, the first carbon-neutral building in the North ($104,280)
- Business conferences including two for women entrepreneurs and one supporting small business week. The first conference, Trailblazers Symposium, took place on International Women’s Day March 8th ($124,720)
- Upgrading CKLB’s satellite communications infrastructure ($247,000)
