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Culture's the word

Building a place-based cultural tourism destination must be heavy on the word, 'culture'
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It's obvious: you can't have cultural tourism without culture.

Place-based cultural tourism is the flag that Whistler is rallying behind as the future of business in this town but at the core of this strategy -when it's inevitably developed - is cultivating and nurturing a thriving local arts and culture scene.

Pique sat down with members of the Cultural Tourism Advisory Group (CTAG) at Franz Wilhelmsen Theatre at Millennium Place following its presentation to council on Tuesday, to discuss the finer details of the strategy, only to find that the finer points have not been finalized, or even really thought about yet. Tuesday's presentation was never meant to offer such details but was merely about requesting council to allow CTAG to remain "as custodians of the process currently," according to John Rae, manager of strategic partnerships for the Resort Municipality of Whistler.

At this point, there is no one agency responsible for the strategy. It's so embryonic at this stage as to be almost as ephemeral as culture itself. The members of CTAG seem to agree however that place-based cultural tourism is about the broader community, pulling together a wide range of elements, from the film festival to the museum to the slow food cycle. It's not an easy thing to wrangle and this is not an easy project to undertake.

"It's important to realize that cultural tourism, especially place-based cultural tourism, is not a single entity," says community culture consultant Ann Popma. "It's a framework. It's a way of thinking about ourselves and there is no one agency that is responsible for place-based cultural tourism."

Doti Niedermayer, executive director of the Whistler Arts Council, says the discussion moving forward is figuring out how to nurture and grow the local arts and culture community. It already has the community here and has the events that bind it together. Travellers may not be coming for Crankworx but still expect, and rightfully so, that there's something happening every single day that they're here. Visitors spend a lot of money to visit Whistler and they should feel the hum of the local culture at all times.

"That has to grow from this place because you cannot afford, no community in the world can... a big top tent here 365 days a year," Niedermayer says. "You can have some spectacles along the way throughout the year but you have to have that constant hum that lives and breathes and works here."

For something like that to work, it has to dig down deep to the grassroots, to the creators of the local arts scene and the not-for-profits, which are the cornerstone of any local culture.

"You can't have cultural tourism without culture," says writer and artist Stephen Vogler. "It's a slow-growing process and it's part of a human evolution. It's been going on here for a long time, but the fact that this report identifies that culture, actually building culture, is what we need to nurture for the economic benefits to improve."

Niedermayer adds, "They're the meat in the stew. The thing about place-based tourism is you can bring in an attraction, we can fly in Cirque du Soleil and their big top tent, or fly in the biggest soprano from Italy and have this great concert. These are great things and they'll drive traffic to Whistler, but really place-based tourism is about your culture in the place that you live and the people that create that culture, that are that culture, that embody that culture."

John Rae says that dropping Cirque's big top tent in day lot 4 would merely replicate what other communities are doing, unless it's a Whistler-specific program. The RMOW is currently working with Cirque du Soleil, and finding funding for, a program where the performers interact with the landscape of the town, thereby integrating the place itself into the performance. This is art that cannot be replicated anywhere else and would be a distinctly Whistler experience.

"Of course it (the Cultural Tourism Development Strategy) will be a success because we've heard from an expert (Steven Thorne) who has said that you actually have a critical mass of experiences here," Rae says, "you've just never actually promoted them and there's a couple of gaps that you can probably work on with product development that are going to give you permission to further position yourself as a destination for people who are self-described as cultural tourists."

The strategy thus far, and the way that it has been communicated to the public, has seemingly prioritized reigning tourists in first, then providing rich local culture second. Niedermayer assures that this is not the case. Place-based cultural tourism is the flag of this plan but that's essentially to get the funding needed to foster and grow the diversity of the Whistler cultural landscape. The second recommendation of Thorne's A Tapestry of Place report (see page 12 for more on this) is the development of a community cultural plan, which they all take seriously.

"The reason the Cultural Tourism Development Strategy came before the cultural plan, really, is because we are a tourism economy," Niedermayer says. "The community had to be told that there is an economic benefit to having a cultural plan and to having cultural tourism because our economy is totally based on tourism."

This plan does not have an end date. It is ongoing, a machine that needs to be constantly maintained and upgraded. At this point, the skeleton of the machine is being assembled but the finished product will have many different aspects, not least of which is a comprehensive bylaw review looking at any policy or bylaw that relates to festivals and events.

According to Bob Andrea, manager of village animation for the RMOW, this includes business regulation, building or fire codes, signage bylaw and making it easier for disparate municipal departments to work together during live performances and events

"We have all these things now but what we would like to do is review them, inventory them and get them into a place where they're all together and when staff interpret them, they look at them the same way rather than individual interpretations, which causes some trouble," Andrea says.

All of this is happening at the right time for Whistler. The community's infrastructure has been built - the bones of the town - and it has earned a reputation as a stellar ski resort - sort of like an all-star athlete in high school.

The success of the Olympics was in many ways like a graduation ceremony for the town from high school into the real world and what's happening now with this new emphasis on arts and culture is akin to the self-actualization stage in any human being.

As Niedermayer says, "When you're growing up, you're just going to school. Then suddenly, one day, you're like, 'Who am I?' It's just a maturation."