future shiſt
Growing up in Medicine Hat, Brian Keating cultivated his curiosity in nature by exploring prairie landscapes. Now a world travel writer, conservatist, media personality, blogger and teacher, Keating spoke to the Medicine Hat News recently about tourism opportunities as well as the challenges and options for balancing development and the natural world.
Brian Keating’s books and other writings are available at his website
www.goingwild.org. He can be heard weekly on CBC radio’s afternoon programming from Calgary.
MHN: You are the first to admit you are not an economist, but have built a career related to ecology and global tourism. Medicine Hat doesn’t have gorilla sanctuaries, so what’s a town to do?
BK: I’m not a professional in Alberta Tourism, but I’ve travelled this province extensively and just finished (last summer) canoeing the South Saskatchewan River.
A friend of mine, Carol Patterson, has a wonderful book called the “Business of Ecotourism” and a lot of this is her spin.
Years ago Alberta went through a brainstorming exercise to figure out the triggers that bring in tourists.
Obviously the mountains are the highest profile international opportunity. Medicine Hat has no snow capped mountains, so you have to look at a reward ratio — time investment to the experience had.
The ratio is one hour of driving for four hours of entertainment. So, if you’re in Brooks and something is happening in Medicine Hat, then it’s worth the drive... but good luck getting Calgarians.
From an honest perspective, you’re not going to do very well with Albertans — 95 per cent of Albertans go west for their holidays.
20 MHN: So what opportunities are here?
BK: Use local culture, make it low impact and high end, because the market will pay.
B.C. has done a lot with native tourism; there’s an opportunity there.
In our society, that might be a hard sell, but the studies that Alberta has done shows that Europeans are very, very interested in native culture.
If you’re trying to get Calgarians here, it might be a tough call, but getting Europeans here might be easier. There have been a lot of market assessments that have been done.
The Badlands are a key word right now that Medicine Hat could jump on to. It’s marketing a cultural entity.
Medicine Hat has the Cypress Hills, and that’s a place that all aboriginal people went to in the winter because it offered refuge.
It’s not that long ago that we had a very vibrant native population on Medicine Hat’s doorstep. In the city, you have that (Saamis) Tepee, and teepees are big. Is there something that could be honed and created for cultural tourism here? Probably.
MHN: When people hear aboriginal tourism, they might think golf courses and casinos, but that’s not what you are suggesting?
BK: Oh no, in B.C. they do it very well. The Spirit Bear Lodge is a great example.
There has to be a honing of the idea and dedication and a from-the-heart aspect. Tourism is a fickle business and it’s easy to do it wrong.
You have to look at success stories and see what’s made them successful.
with
Brian Keating
MIYWASIN CENTRE
517 3rd Street SE
Medicine Hat, AB T1A 0H2 Ph. 403-526-0756 • Fx. 403-504-4064
For more information visit our website:
http://www.miywasin.ab.ca
41248440/03/29/2016
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