Sunday, February 05, 2012

New World Economy

China and India Can Supply The World
The Rest Of Us Become Disney Land!

It appears that Mickey and Minnie were on to something ages ago ......... build La-La Land and they will come. It seems that our world leaders, who arguably could give Mickey a run for his title have come to the conclusion that 'tourism' is going to be the saviour of the world economy.

Just the other day the Chancellor of Germany was saying that if Europe didn't get it's financial house in order, then all of Europe would soon 'become a nice place to visit, but little else". Locally, our leaders (none of whom graduated from Mickey's college) are pinning our fortunes on the tourist business, and a closely related cousin the convention business.

The Mayor from Whistler said last November that even as well known as his community is, tourism is currently a seriously retracting industry. Nothing would indicate that conventions are a rising star either, yet our civic and business leaders seem hell-bent on spending as many tax dollars as they can find to make Nanaimo 'The' premier convention and tourist destination for the world. They are willing to risk as many tax dollars as necessary pursuing this business plan which has been inspired and researched by those captains of enterprise employed at city hall!

It is those same masters of business who build $75 million buildings (without tenders) and then sell off the revenue producing retail space for about $4 million, a space which represents about one third of the total space of the building. The mind simply wobbles. I sometimes wonder if it wise to put your trust in the business decisions being made by people who have nothing to lose when they make decisions. In the private world any project manager that turns a $52 million project into at least a $72 million project would be lucky to get a job pushing a broom, let alone being rewarded by their employer.

Now the same brain trust is desperately throwing money at the hotel business offering tax holidays for ten years to any company daring enough to build a hotel downtown based on the future success of the conference business. They seem to have no regard to the negative effects this move can have by creating an uneven playing field for local hotels who are already struggling in the present (and likely new) economy.

Yes, Tourism, conventions and theme parks, the leading industries of tomorrow and the hope for our future economy. However, it would seem the whole world sees tourism as the saviour of their communities....... do you suppose there might be some serious competition ? More to the point do you think the masters of enterprise at city hall are really capable of guiding Nanaimo anywhere??

allvoices

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