The departments and agencies promoting Prince George have to include the term "Canada's most dangerous city" in their daily thinking.
Some people call it spin doctoring, or putting lipstick on a pig, but their task is to show the world the best sides of Prince George's profile, contending with the black eye Maclean's has dished out.
Maclean's did not give the city its shiner, merely pointed it out, and to argue the point is a misuse of resources, said Tourism Prince George CEO Aidan Kelly.
"By no means do we want to be brushing the problems of our city under the rug," he said. "We need to address those, we shouldn't dismiss the truth especially about something so important,
and I see the police for one doing a great job trying to do something about it. But we have so many more positives that far outweigh the negatives. That's our job, to present that to the world."
The Initiatives Prince George's marketing team has the crime perception at the top of their minds during the redesign of the city's official communications plan. They also have to factor in notions, now outdated, of chronic air problems; and the unavoidable specter of winter that some outsiders dislike.
IPG CEO Heather Oland said it was not a matter of ignoring the downsides of the city, but making sure the many positive elements of Prince George were the first things that came to mind for people considering where to travel for recreation or where to move their family.
The precise wording and imagery for that message is currently under the IPG microscope. An official campaign was already in the works before the third consecutive Maclean's ranking was released.
"To be honest, it is a conversation piece," said Kelly. "It is on our radar. We do not dismiss it at all in our marketing activities. But it also presents an opportunity - a conversation on P.G. - and we have the challenge of being effectively involved in that conversation and directing it to the other things about our city that people would love if they knew about it. We hear about those positive things all the time, from our interactions with the incoming people for the World Baseball Challenge to the tourists who talk to Terry [Murphy, Tourism Information Centre ambassador] at the front desk."
A lot of travellers base their decisions on factors that trump the statistical ruminations of a news magazine, added Kelly, like tourism activities they want to have or business going on in a particular place. Prince George can score a lot of points on both those fronts.
The mayor of Mackenzie told Prince George residents to go ahead and worry about the root causes of crime, and how to fix problems, but don't worry about the city's image to outsiders. That, she said, was intact.
"I'm in Prince George a minimum of once a week, and I've never had any problems and never seen any problems," said Mayor Stephanie Killam. "I certainly don't feel unsafe when I come to P.G. I'm not disputing the numbers, but I am disputing the context. I know this harms Prince George's efforts to recruit people to the community, but this is, frankly not fair to your city."
