The Haida Gwaii Tourism Association is participating in several trade shows, getting its brochure reprinted, and surveying islands' tourist businesses about last year and its problems following the sinking of the Queen of the North.
The association met in Queen Charlotte November 21 and is now consulting its members about changes to the brochure.
The association has access to enough money-$15,000- from the Northern Fund to print and distribute 100,000 brochures, and decided to reprint the previous one with some updates, to ensure it's out in time for the coming season.
It is also having the brochures distributed at seven trade shows-4 in Canada, 3 in the US- before next season, including the Toronto Outdoor show, the Seattle Fly Fishing show and one show each in Calgary and Edmonton.
Total cost to the association to participate is about $275.
The association also decided to cooperate with the QCI Chamber of Commerce and the Haida Heritage Centre in participating in person in two trade shows early next year. The chamber had booked booth space at a show in Abbotsford and another in Edmonton, at a cost of $1,500, and was looking for partners to both take part in the shows and help pay the cost. The HGTA decided to take part in both, at a cost of $500 to share the booth space.
"Details still need to be worked out, association president Andrew Merilees said, " We want to have some cooperation, we are taking it as a test case to see how we all work together."
The association is also surveying tourist businesses on the islands to find out how their business was affected by the sinking of the ferry last spring.
"Basically, we're asking businesses if their revenue had gone up or down, by what percentage, and thoughts as to why," Mr. Merilees said. "We are really hoping to get a little bit of feedback from the businesses."
The surveys were mailed out two weeks ago and Mr. Merilees is hoping to receive all the responses by December 11, so he can have a look at it over Christmas, and determine if there's a direction for the association to proceed.