As Tourism Tofino’s new executive director, Brad Parsell is tasked with keeping the town’s flow of visitors running strong, but he’s spent his first two months focused on residents.
“It’s just being a little bit more visible in the community. I think we’re so focused on talking to the visitor all the time and focusing on the visitor that we forget that we operate within a community and that people have questions about what’s happening with tourism,” Parsell told the Westerly News.
“I’m happy to have those difficult conversations, I’m not going to shy away from them. I know it’s a contentious issue for some folks, but I think the first step is really engaging a little bit more with our community and telling our story maybe a little bit better.”
Parsell arrived in Tofino in November and said he’s spent his first couple months trying to meet as many residents as possible.
“Everyone’s been very kind and very supportive and everyone’s been very candid with me about what they think about tourism and where it’s at in Tofino at the moment and what can be done better,” he said. “Obviously, it’s beautiful and stunning, but what’s really been awesome is the people and actually getting to meet people in the community.”
Parsell spent the past decade in Fernie, a resort municipality popular among skiers and snowboarders, where he served as the executive director for the chamber of commerce, working closely with Tourism Fernie. Prior to being with the chamber, he worked as the general manager of Fernie Lodging Company and sat on the board of directors for both Tourism Fernie and the regional organization Kootenay Rockies Tourism.
While Fernie’s visitation booms in the winter and Tofino’s in the summer, he suggested both communities face similar challenges around labour shortages, staff housing and transportation.
Parsell’s first Tofino experience was as a tourist when he visited the community with his partner Averil Morris during a Vancouver Island road trip in 2014 and he said they were both stunned by their surroundings.
“We fell in love with the place and it always kind of stuck in the back of our minds that we’d love to get out to the Island and the West Coast one day,” he said.
“This opportunity came up and I’d really wanted to work more directly for a tourism organization like Tourism Tofino and we’d talked about moving to the Island, so the opportunity checked a lot of boxes and that’s why I threw my hat in the ring…We are still in that ‘pinching ourselves phase’ where we can’t actually believe that this is our new home and we’re actually fortunate enough to live here. We’re very excited to be here.”
During a Nov. 8 presentation to the town’s municipal council, prior to Parsell’s arrival, Tourism Tofino pitched a tactical plan that included improving tourist-resident relations and Parsell said he plans to tackle any ‘us versus them’ sentiments.
“It’s going to be very important to me to make myself available to the community and residents to have those conversations and to engage with the community, perhaps a little bit more than we have in the past. The last thing we want to do is lose our social licence with the community,” he said. “Building that trust with the community, I think, is really the first step. Once we’re there, there’s all kinds of things we can look at in terms of trying to make tourism a real force for good in the community.”
He added a “nuanced” approach to marketing Tofino is needed, rather than trying to pack as many tourists into the town as possible.
“It’s really thinking about who are the right type of visitors who align with our local values, when do we want them here, what do we want them doing when they’re here and trying to put all that together into a sophisticated marketing campaign that’s targeting the right people at the right time,” he said.
He added that the town’s international acclaim means summer is full enough already and creating a more steady and sustained tourism stream throughout the year would benefit an economy that’s currently forced to navigate seasonal ebbs and flows.
“It’s really expensive and time consuming to dial up your staff up and down like that to meet those huge spikes in demand and to be constantly rehiring and retraining,” he said.
“It means the workforce in Tofino is very transient. There’s always people coming and going, which can be really a good thing but, from a business point of view, it’s incredibly frustrating. There is some opportunity to see a little bit more visitation when we need it, which is definitely not during the summer.”
He added though keeping tourists coming is a competitive business, especially with the pent-up international demand created by COVID-19 travel restrictions easing and B.C.’s ski resorts being tough to lure winter travellers away from.
“It’s always going to be important to keep Tofino in the conversation,” he said. “I think what’s equally as important is trying to find that balance between the obvious benefits of tourism to Tofino, but also acknowledging that there are challenges that come with it and how we can work on those challenges.”
He added the competition could become tighter if recession fears come true.
“Obviously travel is a very discretionary thing so, if people tighten their belts, travel plans can be the first thing to go. There are some headwinds for sure in terms of the demand side of the equation,” he said. “Tourism touches everyone in Tofino in some way, shape or form. There’s a lot of jobs and a lot of people’s livelihoods that depend on it…If (a recession) is to happen, and I’m not crystal balling it here, but we have to be ready as an organization to face whatever happens in the next year or two.”
He added that reconciliation and finding avenues for First Nations to play a “more meaningful role in the tourism industry” as well as building more inclusivity and accessibility are both top, early priorities as is promoting a culture of environmental stewardship.
“The environment is a huge part of living out here and, obviously, what attracted me in the first place on many fronts is just how stunningly beautiful this part of the world is,” he said. “As an industry, the tourism industry, we have a responsibility to protect that environment and to steward it and do everything we can to regenerate it.”
andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca
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