As a marketing professional, I saw the 24-page DCB publication, and to say it was disappointing would be the understatement of the year. The editorial was inferior and not very reflective of the Cape Breton experience, the photography was lacklustre, and the entire publication was clearly underfunded by advertisers. Since CB is competing with many other destinations, including outstanding marketing by NL and Quebec Maritime — it is imperative that the “WOW factor be present in every piece that is developed for tourism in this market. Before firing non-strategic and non-tactical pieces at potential customers, there should be a brand strategy, positioning statement and brand pillars developed — so that every marketing effort achieves maximum momentum and memorability among consumers. The piece-meal approach will not work — and is simply throwing good money after bad.

As an operator in Inverness County I will not participate regardless of consequences.

This levy is a “room tax”, not a “levy” . The tax is to be collected by taxing the rooms, yet everyone else in tourism gets to benefit from the marketing. The people that will receive this money are not the DCB as we know it today , they have yet to regroup to form their new organization. The Municipalities should not sign over these millions in tax revenue until they know and everyone in the industry knows who is managing this money and how. Notice there has been no mention of the room sales on Cape Breton for the last 5-7 years and why those may have decreased with all the marketing money being spent now that no one knows about as no one has looked at that. Even so, we’ll just go and add another tax on our customers to get more money to spend on marketing and use a group of people who don’t work for the people who own the product to do the marketing of the product. NS Tourism spends over $20 million a year on marketing, and not once do they show the taxpayers how that money has helped boost the room sales for the NS businesses. Why, well it really hasn’t helped the NS Owned businesses. . In actual fact , in NS , just as on CB island, the number of accommodation businesses that are OWNED by NS companies has declined, it seems only the international hotel owners that have seen increased room sales. This looks like the marketing department is taking over the management of the company and contracting all their work to their family owned business. Apologize if I am wrong, but haven’t seen any legal documents yet even though the law to allow this has passed. Imagine, the cart before the horse. I want to know who in the financial management of the municipality is going to tell me when I ask, “what did you do with the money?”. Guess what , they won’t know . Amazing, hundreds of business owners did not get to vote on this , many objected, and it still gets pushed through. The Municipal elections are coming. And by the way, wait till the province makes their next move and wants to pass a law that means they will will no longer license or regulate tourism accommodations. Imagine implement a tax today on a product that tomorrow you plan to stop producing . What are we doing ?

Small inns are an endangered species. The room tax will add to the demise to the benefit of whom? ?? Large multi-site properties and international hotel stockholders. B&Bs, attractions, craft shops, restuarants, etc., don’t have to deal with it—-lucky them.

MEANWHILE, THE GROWING SCOURGE OF UNLICENSED PROPERTIES THAT PAY NO COMMERCIAL TAX, HAVE NO LIABILITY INSURANCE, NO WATER TESTING, NO FIRE INSPECTIONS, PAY NO COMMERCIAL RATES TO NS POWER etc. are undermining us on the other side. What kind of tax revenue is lost as a result of this underground economy?

In a practical sense, we who may be forced to collect the tax, will be acting as agents of the taxing authority. This takes a disproportionate amount of time for small inns as compared with the large properties. We will have to re-program our bookkeeping systems, secure the revenue, meet with auditors, whatever. Large properties can simply leave these matters to the “central office.” I propose that since we will be tax collection agents, we charge a 10% commission for the service we will be providing.