At the inaugural Whistler Business and the Arts Awards in December 2003, guest speaker Max Wyman indicated that there was enormous opportunity to showcase arts and to develop arts as a meaningful legacy from the Olympic Games in 2010.
Those ideas were echoed at the July 2005 Chamber of Commerce luncheon by Raymond Grant, executive director for programming for the Sundance Festival and the former artistic director of the 2002 Cultural Olympiad. Residents, business owners and 2010 Olympic Organizing Committee members were urged to tell the story of Whistler – "And you will look magnificent in the eyes of the world. And, many eyes will be on you."
Many local artists, business people, and visionaries who would like to see Whistler as a cultural destination have their eyes set on a new direction for Whistler. It’s a potentially lucrative course as well. Estimates are that arts and culture visitors spend $100 a day more than regular tourists. Statistics from the the Canadian Tourism Commission back up the affluent nature of this new market: "Wine and culinary enthusiasts span the income and education spectrums, but are appreciably more affluent than are typical domestic visitors in Canada and have more formal education. The difference between ‘typical’ domestic tourists and wine and culinary enthusiasts within Canada is apparent in their average annual household incomes: $54,900 for the typical domestic leisure visitor and $65,500 for the sub-group with a particular interest in food and wine."
Those stats are only for two million or so Canadian wine and culinary enthusiasts; the potential is enormous when added to the performing arts enthusiast market (1.3 million adults) and visual arts enthusiasts (2.1 million).
Whistler already boasts an impressive lineup of arts and culture festivals, from Cornucopia to the Whistler Film Festival and Art Walk to the Performance series. But if we heed the advice of Messrs. Wyman and Grant this will just be the tip of the iceberg. Anyone with an interest in continuing Whistler’s economic sustainability had better start smelling what proponents of the Whistler arts scene are cooking.
Arts means business
The Council for Business and the Arts in Canada is dedicated to helping arts organizations and businesses reach their full potential by encouraging creative partnerships between the two. According to their November 2004 report titled Snapshot of Arts and Culture in Canada, "Revenues earned by arts and culture organizations are second only to sports and recreation in their degree of self-reliance – earning almost 50% of their revenues through fees." Fees collected account for the largest source of revenues for arts and culture organizations, far outpacing government funding. According to the report, the federal government offers surprisingly little; "Only 0.08% of the 2004-05 total federal budget is allocated to the Canada Council for the Arts which transfers funds to artists and cultural groups. That represents 4.6% of the Canadian Heritage budget." The lion’s share of government spending is contributed by the provinces (13%) with the feds and private sector investment in the arts each contributing 8% to total arts and culture revenue; Municipal governments pitch in a respectable 6%.
Whistler arts Council Director Doti Niedermayer, has a keen awareness of how Whistler’s business community and arts scene can come together for mutual benefit.
"It’s about co-ordinating goals. Say you’re a business person and I’m an arts person. Your goal is to increase tourism, mine is to increase an artistic vibrancy of the village. There’s ways we can work together to reach both of our goals."
Niedermayer points to recent successful business and art collaborations to shore up the point of how business can be the benefactor of arts initiatives; "Take Art Walk for example; businesses want to increase traffic and we want to increase the amount of venues that showcase local artists. It works for both sides."
The Cornucopia festival is an example of arts and business collaboration that has paid dividends for local business. Tourism Whistler Director of Communications Michele Comeau Thompson explained how the event has grown from its humble beginnings nine years ago. "It has gone from a two-day event that was focused around Crush, to a five-day event that is still focused around Crush as its signature event, but now features extensive programming for everyone from the wine newbie to food connoisseurs.
"One of Cornucopia's goals and successes has been to build Whistler’s recognition as a culinary destination. Using a feature festival to showcase a community's assets is great for local industry and trade, and is also, of course, great for business."
Cornucopia is a staple of Whistler’s preseason tourism diet and Comeau Thompson has the stats that back up the event’s success. "Surveys taken during last year's event indicated that 98 per cent of respondents would recommend Cornucopia to a friend. With more sold-out events in 2004 than any previous year, room nights booked through Cornucopia packages grew by more than 20 per cent over 2003. Crush! hosted more than 1,400 people in 2004 and $28,654 was raised for the Association of Whistler-Area Residents for the Environment (AWARE), the chosen charity recipient for the festival."
The good news for arts enthusiasts and for people excited about the prospect of arts creating additional visits is the fact that the charity recipient from this year’s Cornucopia was the Whistler Arts Council.
From grass roots to global brand
It’s a recipe for success that can be used again and again; an event that can grow from a local following to a big time event, and one that mixes easily between locals and tourists. If Shauna Hardy Mishaw has anything to do with it, the strategy of cooking up a tasty recipe of arts events that locals and tourists can both look forward to will be replicated. Shauna is the co-founder and executive director of the Whistler Film Festival Society. Launched in 2001, the Whistler Film Festival has quickly become one of Whistler’s key cultural events and has developed into an international film festival complete with world premieres, headliner guests and an innovative education program. In a recent interview, Hardy Mishaw explained how the arts have a significant role to play in the tourism economy.
"I hope the climate is right for change because we need to ask what we can do to respond to the changing market; cultivating the arts is one of the answers."
Hardy Mishaw points to evidence from the highly successful Sundance Film Festival to illustrate her point. "Sundance Film Festival injects $40 million into Park City economy in 10 days."
It takes time to create events tourist hunger for – time and a good deal of patience and commitment. Someone who knows about developing lasting arts events is Sandra Kochan, an independent consultant based in Kelowna, with clients in the food, wine, arts and tourism sectors. Since 2002, Sandra has been the contracted co-ordinator for the Okanagan Cultural Corridor project, a cultural tourism initiative promoting more than 100 arts, heritage and agri-tourism attractions. Kochan has been, for many years, dedicated to the idea that arts, wine, food, culture and tourism are inextricably linked. When asked about developing lasting arts legacies, she cautioned focusing on legacies and urged a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race attitude. "Legacies aren’t created intentionally, they grow organically over time. You need to grow arts projects (like Art Walk and the Children’s Art Festival) and it takes a lot of dedication to maintain over time. There is no such thing as business as usual with events."
There is near unanimous consensus with everyone interviewed, that patience, commitment and the understanding of the artist’s role in the community must be understood before financial success can be created. Kochan goes further in explaining what helps create a vibrant arts community: "Nurturing an environment where arts can succeed and the artist’s role is respected…. Most people have never met an artist and don’t know how much time and effort goes into becoming one."
She further explained that their has to be a meaningful partnership between the community and artist. "There needs to be commitment at all levels, including artists. It’s no secret that the artists who are engaged are the ones that are successful."
Hardy Mishaw explains how the process works: "Arts is at the heart of a healthy community. If we share our arts and culture then the whole community will benefit. It’s fundamental to support community initiatives first, once you have support from the community you can go after industry partners and develop programs that in turn fill hotel beds."
Our natural amenities
There was also consensus that the most important factor in Whistler’s success as an arts and culture destination was the fact that Whistler is an established brand, a global player, and has some of the most beautiful natural amenities in the world. There are many synergies between a typical recreational visitor and one that might come here for arts and culture; they share the same demographic profile and enjoy the same socio economic status.
Hardy Mishaw spoke to the opportunities that exist. "There is an enormous appetite for entertainment and we need to satisfy it. The opportunity is there because Whistler is so well known. People want to come here, the brand is established and is the biggest asset we have. Now we can build on it with cultural content."
Niedermayer expresses the same sentiment when speaking to the opportunities: "When you think of the people who come here, they are well educated, they have a good income and these people are interested in the arts. They want that unique experience; that’s where the arts can play a role in creating a more unique experience."
Whistler appears to have an appetite for further infrastructure development to add vitality to the town, but leveraging our inherent beauty and mixing it with some cultural tourism products could be just the answer we are looking for if we want to add vitality to our community and increase the authenticity of the visitor experience.
Being a genuine experience is something Sandra Kochan encourages when considering cultural events. "It has to be authentic, and by authentic I mean it needs to be congruent with the cultural values of the community and fit in the context of the natural amenities."
Support for cultural initiatives is not only a priority for artists and their advocates, it’s also top of mind to the marketers whose job it is to sell the resort. Comeau Thompson explains that it’s top of mind with Tourism Whistler.
"We believe that by incorporating our arts and culture into what we show to our visitors, we will add a huge value to the Whistler experience. We know that people want to have a genuine experience when they travel, an experience with more depth, which means learning about the community, meeting the people, and experiencing the local culture. I think we have the people, the talent and the tools in Whistler, and we are moving toward arts and culture being integrated into everything we do and everything that we showcase – if we can all get good at showing this side of Whistler and including visitors in our local culture, this could definitely be part of the competitive edge that keeps people interested in coming back."
Diversify your portfolio
To properly diversify our tourism offerings, our town is going to need to stir the creative pot a little and embrace some unique ideas that are on the table. You never know what will be the next Whistler Film Festival or Cornucopia, so you have to give them all a little taste.
One such distinctive event is An Italian Renaissance Intrigue. The event was part of the Cornucopia Food and Wine Festival and the evening featured Pauline Holdstock (whose sixth novel, Beyond Measure, was short-listed for the prestigious Giller Prize in 2004 and won the B.C. Book of the Year award ). She was introducing her new book, A Rare and Curious Gift.
BookBuffet
founder, Paula Shackleton, explains the simplicity that is the hallmark of many successful events. "You already drink wine while discussing books, why not present wines with books?"Shackleton also explained that this was not a one-time event but the first of a series of literary events that she plans to bring to the Whistler community.
BookBuffet is also injecting a bit of culture into the day-to-day life of the resort with its Whistler Reads, a village-wide reading program where books are discussed in local coffee shops. Shackleton describes the project with the passion of an artist. "Whistler Reads strives to unite our community in reading and discussing one book each month and meeting around town to discuss the book. It serves the greater community of residents, vacation homeowners, long stay and return visitors and especially the village’s young people who live and work here. Many of them have recently graduated from college or university and have pretty sophisticated reading tastes."
Shackleton says that it also adds a dimension of service to the resort guest. "Whistler is a service industry town. We get sophisticated travelers who read and enjoy discussing books. I am sure they'd love to hear about the books our community is reading and compare notes."
As Whistler looks to diversify its menu of tourism offerings, we must understand that creativity is the hallmark of economic growth. Our community needs to embrace the arts community and make appropriate investments to foster artistic endeavours, and promote collaboration between artists and all levels of the community. Arts and culture are going to play a more important role in the future of our resort, both in maintaining Whistler as a thriving community to live in and as an economic driver for tourism.
