City staff have been given the go-ahead to start negotiations with the St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce for the chamber to provide tourism information services.
Council unanimously voted in favour of a motion from Coun. Gilles Prefontaine that directs administration to negotiate a co-operative service agreement with the chamber “to provide additional tourism information and welcome services included from the current Chamber of Commerce location to be brought back to council by February 14, 2014.”
Before council voted, chamber president and CEO Lynda Moffat came to speak in support of either of the motions in front of council on Monday that would have launched negotiations.
“If we both work together with a common vision and a common goal, we can accomplish great things here,” Moffat said.
The chamber continues to have tourists, both locals and visitors, come in looking for information. Currently the city provides racks of tourism brochures at St. Albert Place and Servus Place instead of having any tourism information personnel.
The chamber’s location used to be where tourism information services were located. “The numbers of people who came in were quite bewildering to us,” Moffat said.
Coun. Sheena Hughes had given notice to put forward a similar motion to Prefontaine’s that called for a committee made up of city staff and council members to enter negotiations, and for the funds required for the service to be taken from the economic development department’s budget. She opted out of bringing the motion forward once Prefontaine’s motion had passed.
“It’d be great to see a collaborative approach in where we can share some of those costs and definitely share the benefits,” Prefontaine said in support of his motion.
Couns. Cathy Heron, Cam MacKay and Hughes asked staff several questions during the debate over the motion.
Hughes wanted to know if negotiations had ever been started when the economic development department first gave up their space in the now chamber-only building, and if the chamber was being charged market rent.
Heron wanted to know if tourism brochure racks would stay in St. Albert Place and Servus Place and staff said they believed some should stay in Servus Place.
Heron also wondered if the biggest cost in the proposed negotiations would be hiring a staff member and staying open on Saturdays. She expressed a hope that during negotiations they could consider just keeping the brochure racks at the chamber office initially with any additional staff and operating hours presented as a new business case to council before proceeding.
MacKay said to him, tourism services are a bit more than handing out brochures. He also asked if volunteers were ever used to provide such services and was told by staff the practice was discontinued about 2004.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said he would have preferred the north end of town for tourism services, but noted there’s no good location available there. He also put his “policy hat” on and made a pitch for long-term thinking.
“This is another one-off motion. So I’m hopeful, Mr. (Guy) Boston, when you come back, that maybe there is a tourism policy, or another policy related to this matter,” Crouse said.
