Nelson (Shooting) Star

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Next time you're strolling down Baker Street put yourself in the flip-flops of a tourist. Think about how you feel when you visit Venice or Portland or Belmopan.

This is the first paragraph of an editorial in the Nelson Star, Aug. 10, 2012, Our greatest resource. Clearly addressing a very specific Nelson demographic, while just as clearly stereotyping tourists en masse.
If a tourist's flip-flops are not within your reach; if you don't stroll on Baker to begin with; and if Venice, Portland or Belmopan are not on your map: stop reading right here. Unless the weirdness of the Star's proposition makes you curious.
From simple weirdness to bizarre logic - bizarre English, too!

Nelson is a tiny spot on the map, but when you arrive here on a holiday for the first time it's no different than any other strange city. Though exciting to soak in new sights and sounds, there is inevitably feelings of anxiety when you look upon a place with fresh eyes.

Anxious fresh eyes upon Baker. Right!

That's where you come in. ... If someone looks like they're from out of town and a little lost, a simple " can I help you find something?" is a great jumping off point. Most times a little conversation will break out and you can share some of your special places in our area. If you have a favourite spot to eat or a tucked away beach, odds are this stranger would be extremely grateful to hear about it. It only takes a moment, but the impact can have a lasting impression.

I'll say! Lasting impression, indeed! If someone came on to me like that in Venice - where I actually could feel lost, what with all those canals every which way, a strange lingo and the zombie crowds - there I'd definitely think:  Here we go again! The old guide-come-on - for you cheap, and I've got a sister.

But a little lost on Baker?
- You like naked beach?
- Get off me, creepo!

Are we that desperate to flog our goods and goodies? Should we maybe take the sandwich-board idea to the next level: have touts lure flip-flop-profiled tourists into my casbah?

Then this editorial - an editorial commonly expressing the views of a newspaper as a whole with emphatic oomph - gets down to listing where we are lacking in what:

In today's paper there are several items that remind us just how important tourism is to the foundation of our economy. The front page features stories on the slow start to summer and the huge influx of visitors for Shambhala. The letter page provides critical voices from outside who tell us we need to do better.

The front-page article Tourism numbers take a dip tells readers that because of the weather and resulting conditions in early summer tourist numbers were down. But that these numbers were higher in June - by a percent or 2 so it was relative - than last year. So where was the dipping? And was it 1 or 2 percent? Relative to what? Then the reader is told promptly that it is not clear what caused the decline! I'm so confused!

Apparently things picked-up in a big way in August, but seeing that we were into August less than 10 days when this article was put together - a connection between the seemingly sudden influx of tourists and the explained advertising-push during the last week of July and first two weeks of August seems spurious. Particularly as - again! - this article was published on Aug. 10, probably put together around/before the 8th. So what's with the first 2 weeks of August time-warp here? 
Aside from the weirdness with dates: tourists don't pack and go on vacation that spontaneously - just because they're told the weather now is nice! And the visitor's centre had one of the busiest days it ever had here in Nelson in early August. Like one of the most super-enormous rushes of tourists ever wanting in-person info during the first week in August? What!

If the sun is shining here - it probably is shining in other places as well. So that and the also listed as reasons Kaslo Jazz Festival (over!), Shambhala (almost over and not your average tourist-fare!) and markets (now standard in most places) can't possibly be what will bring tourists to Nelson in days to come - as envisioned by the director of Nelson Kootenay Lake Tourism, via the writer of this article.

So to determine the movement of it all, my suggestion is to put together a hand-out with basic questions like: why Nelson; how long in Nelson; planned how and how long before coming; what is interesting/what is not; what do you want/want more of; size of family traveling; accommodation? Handed out throughout the year at the camp-ground and in hotels - answered and collected  there. All to be used as a constantly updated base from which to operate.

No amount of advertising is going to bring enough tourists to keep Nelson's economy afloat indefinitely - let alone make it grow - if what's advertised is available pretty much everywhere else in the interior. Making Nelson sound like a miracle destination ultimately will have to backfire if it doesn't deliver! Ultimately will be the proverbial flogging of a dead horse.

Nelson as such needs to reinvent (not repeat!) itself to become truly unique and because of that a must-see destination - then they'll come!

For detailed thoughts on this see post

Nelson In Living Colour

1. Dec. 2011

in this blog.

Back to the editorial, pointing us to the letter-page. There are two letters. How convenient! How convenient that these particular letters should arrive in tandem with the tourist-dip article's publication!
Unless they were pulled from the dead-letters file to suit exactly what purpose, Nelson Star? To begin with: how authentic are letters submitted by e-mail, even snail-mail, as criticism from the outside? I mean, anyone in Nelson  - pretending to be an out-of-towner - may send-in or initiate having sent-in such a letter, what with Nelson - all the way up to City Council - immediately giving it particular gravitas just because it's from out there.

1. Letter
Supposedly from Edmonton - every summer in the Kootenays! - this family spends little time and money in Nelson, because Nelson is so cruel to Rover! Which immediately brings up that Nelsonites and those from the area bring their dog - often several together - downtown without a hitch. All the time. But the Edmontons have never yet noticed that!
Even if tourists were aware of the downtown-dog bylaw and wanted to follow it: how much time would they have to spend on Baker, for Rover to have a nervous breakdown, waiting in the car - parked in the shade, with a window cracked and a bowl of water? What happens to Rover if a hotel somewhere else in their travels won't allow him inside? Or stores? Or restaurants?
Get over yourself, Rover!
Within the last few years the Daily News and Star - bless their little-doggie hearts - may have published maybe 5 such doggie-heart letters - and the earth shook! - with nobody here ever openly questioning their source/motive or their assertion that Nelson as such is not dog-friendly!
The heading of this letter Is Nelson trying to drive away tourists? is the usual vaguely inflammatory heading provided by the Star to make something - anything! - more interesting than it is.

2. Letter
This woman - also a regular visitor! - writes about how disgusting things used to be  with all the crude hippies and that - after a temporary clean-up - Nelson is now again into that with Baker Street back to being full of dirty young people asking for money. ... In fact there was a write up in our Seattle paper from a travel reporter about Nelson  and he kind of stated the same thing about the bohemians, dogs and bikes on Baker Street.
Yet her last sentence being It is an interesting place. Go figure! And this topped with an extra-large 4-Star heading Time to clean up Nelson.
So these are the two examples the Nelson Star uses to tell us we need to do better. The Star's words - not the letter-writers'.

What makes it an interesting place are in part the not-so-white-bread young people, many of whom with money and their particular way of dressing often a fashion-statement. The Shambhala crowd is good for the Nelson-and-area economy!

Last time for the editorial:
This is a great time for swapping flip-flops. This weekend the Nelson Rowing Club is hosting athletes from across the west and soon the Shambhala refugees will start rolling into town after five days of partying.

Calling people refugees is rather insensitive - in this trifacta of cover-story/editorial/letters silliness - considering the image probably brought up by the term for many: those displaced in current armed conflicts.
But when the Shambhala crowd - with its money - hits Nelson again, by all means: let's swap flip-flops with them! If they care to!

After some strong editorials recently - the Star seemingly becoming a better paper - this issue takes several steps back into the dark ages of ignorance and misinformation by - at best - carelessness. If tourism is indeed Our greatest resource - the Nelson Star is supporting it awkwardly!



Maybe it's the heat!

Copies of the Fri. Aug. 10 Nelson Star are available at the usual places until Tue. Aug. 14 and after that at the Star's office on Hall Street.







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