UPDATE: In 2013, shortly after I returned from 20 years abroad, The Gazette ran a pair of opinion features by famously cranky columnist Don Macpherson. He groaned on (as Anglo writers do sometimes) about how Montreal’s allegedly poor image – everything from rising crime and train wrecks to ethnic scuffles and bad weather — was affecting tourism. One problem: no statistics backed this up.
I pointed this out in a letter to the editor and The Gazette’s op-ed coordinators, to their credit, asked me to expand on my criticism in a longer opinion piece. Today, after 5 years of steady growth in tourism, a conventions boom, and with the hotel industry and foreign student populations growing steadily, these conclusions remain flamingly obvious.
So here we go …. one more time, it’s summer!
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by David Winch
Special to The Gazette, August 12, 2013
Reading political writer Don Macpherson’s two recent attempts to connect seasonal blips in Montreal tourist numbers with “bad news” items emanating from the city (“Where have all the tourists gone?”, Opinion, Aug. 3, and “It’s all bad news for Montreal”, Opinion, Aug. 8, 2013) , I am reminded of Mordecai Richler’s quip about Canadian journalists who overstate the importance of local events — and end up looking at the world “through a wrong-ended telescope”.
While working in New York and Western Europe for 20 years before returning to Canada this spring, I saw that most of the negative crime, disaster or politics news stories from Canada or Quebec were noticed only fleetingly by foreigners. Even the biggest stories swirl through the mediascape and disappear. The great Montreal ice storm of 1998? People in New York paid attention while it lasted, then changed channels. Think of the tornadoes ravaging the US Midwest: they hold Americans’ attention on TV, then are quickly superseded by some other natural disaster.
The city ‘brand’
Macpherson cites several bad-news headlines of recent years, including local crime (the Magnotta murders), technology disasters (train explosion in Lac Mégantic), political corruption and scandals (Charbonneau Commission) and language or ethnic issues (Pastagate and PQ). But none of these events are qualitatively different from the many crime, disaster, or corruption scandals crowding the European media. And they are far too diffuse to affect what he calls the Montreal “brand”.
For example, the only regular, live TV seen in Europe coming from Montreal is the annual Grand Prix race. In 2012 the “Maple spring” student tuition protests added a controversial angle to the race coverage, with a threat of disruption downtown. There was some handwringing that tourists would stay away that year, worried about political upheaval. But frankly, what modern European is shocked by student protests?
The figures support that conclusion: Tourisme Montréal, citing Conference Board of Canada figures, concludes Montreal tourist visits were up about 1 per cent in 2012 over 2011, while tourist spending rose 2.6 per cent. Spending by overseas tourists was up 3 per cent. — Protests, what protests?
Returning to town to see so many chain-hotel towers shooting up in Montreal makes me think that hotel corporations’ base their long-term planning on factors deeper than shallow news cycles.
Macpherson’s thesis that bad news greatly affects local tourism is unproven. Let’s see the methodology before reaching easy conclusions.
For example, Spain in mid-2013, with its train crashes, staggering unemployment, angry protesters and clashes with police, gets lots of negative media coverage. But do people actually turn down a vacation in Spain because of that? Recent reports suggest a clear no: “Spain’s economic crisis is in its sixth straight year yet tourism, worth 11 per cent of GDP, is holding its own, one of the few bright spots on a bleak horizon” (“Spain’s tourism boom keeps troubled country partying”, CNN, July 10, 2013).
Young Europeans’ view
In fact, my impression from discussions in recent years with New Yorkers and Europeans, especially young people, is that they have an almost absurdly positive view of Canada and of Montreal specifically. The young see Montreal as a “festival city” and tend to know a lot about its universities.
Anecdotes can go any way, but mine are largely positive. One family I met in New York City with 2 weeks to spend travelling asked me for an Eastern Canada itinerary. I tried to be balanced, giving them time in all the major Eastern centres – landing at Dorval and staying here a few days, then travelling to Quebec City, a day trip to Ottawa, and finally several days in Toronto and Niagara before returning for the flight home. When the trip was done, the father confided that it was all very well — but they would have liked “more Montreal”.
More recently, I advised an anxious mother in western Switzerland about housing possibilities in the Plateau district. She was almost despairing at her son’s insistence, but word of mouth had convinced him that UQAM and student life there would be far more interesting than university in France. This is a commonplace view among adventurous young Europeans.
Macpherson clearly does not like Montreal’s pothole politics or ethnic squabbles. Who does? But there is no hard evidence such local woes greatly affect foreign attitudes or tourism numbers.
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Epilogue, 2017:
https://montrealgazette.com/business/the-best-since-expo-67-tourist-numbers-rise-this-year-in-montreal
