By Stephanie Froese

Collaboration, Saskatchewan’s tourism destination

Mar 21, 2011 | 6:29 AM

According Linda Haverstock, CEO of Tourism Saskatchewan, this last year has seen a surge in people coming to and traveling within the province.

In fact, she said Saskatchewan is one of the only places in Canada to see an increase.

“It’s interesting because the one thing about tourism is you never really, really know how things are going unless you get retrospective information,” Haverstock said.

“We’re hoping of course that people respond to the different kinds of marketing that we are doing outside of our boarders.”

Haverstock said there is a push for people to be more collaborative within the province as far as a new provincial campaign is concerned.

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“Very few visitors would think about traveling to the province to go to a place unless it’s been a tradition for them in the past.”

She said people don’t want to go to one place — they want to make sure they have other things to do when they’re coming to a particular location.

Saskatchewan is not known for having a lot of flagships or icons and that’s something Haverstock would like to see change.

“When people think of Banff they know what it is and that’s where we need to get to in Saskatchewan.”

Haverstock pinpointed industry development and quality assurance as a major challenge for our province.

“We need to make sure that people are promised one thing and when they get here that is going to be delivered.”

When it comes to marketing, Haverstock said the provincial level is doing quite well.

“It’s only about money. If we had the money that Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland Labrador had it would make it far simpler.”

Haverstock said she was very interested in a Destination Marketing Fee that Prince Albert Tourism has brought to the city. She said more dollars mean the bar can be raised in the city when it comes to tourism and there can be more collaboration with the province.

Haverstock was in Prince Albert this weekend to talk with people about upcoming initiatives in the tourism industry.

sfroese@panow.com