It's about time.
Tourism Prince George has hired a new CEO to start in September. Aidan Kelly, according to a recent Citizen story, has been climbing the managerial ranks at the City of Prince George over the last four years and currently sits as manager of solid waste services as well as parks. Having graduated from UNBC with a degree in commerce majoring in marketing in 2006, it is hard to see how someone with little experience would be the right guy for the job.
Although he has no outward experience in the tourism field, Tourism P.G. board member Kathie Scouten said there is peripheral involvement in his background and other transferrable skills that make him not only a good fit, but one the board is excited about.
That is like a motorcycle racing team looking for a new rider saying, "well, although you have never ridden a motorcycle before, you do own a helmet. You're the perfect guy for the job."
Hell, I'd be excited to see this guy on the motorcycle as well, but it may not be too pleasant a scene.
Kelly himself says they job is essentially a strategically marketing position, but if that is the case, then why is there also a marketing co-ordinator staff member at Tourism P.G. Wouldn't marketing fall under the auspices of this position.
Having been in Prince George for eight years, presumably half of them studying for his degree at UNBC, Kelly says "I think I have given a lot to this community in the last eight years... my track record will show what I can do in this position."
How much of a track record can you have if you have only been out of university for four years?
However, maybe Tourism P.G. is on the right track here. After all, Prince George didn't seem to have people clamouring to come here specifically because Tourism P.G. made them believe it was a great place to visit. They also mustn't have had a lot of qualified people clamouring for the job if it took them a year to fill the position.
What sort of tourist attractions do we have anyway?
Maybe what Tourism P.G. needs is someone like Kelly who only has a helmet, but wears it proudly. Someone who doesn't have the generic ideas of tourism ingrained in his melon from years of working in the field. Maybe they need someone with a new, fresh sense of what tourism should mean to Prince George, or what people might want to come here for. Maybe the garbage on the cut banks could be one of these reasons?
The CEO job, originally posted as an executive director position, was been sitting vacant for a year and everything seems to have rolled along quite nicely without anyone in the position. There have been no rumblings or complaints like "damn, I really wish tourism P.G. would hire a new CEO soon, the tourism in this city has really gone to pot since the last person left the job."
It would seem that the majority of tourism in Prince George is from people passing through on their way to somewhere else. But maybe that's all we need.
Although Tourism P.G. would not disclose what they will be paying Kelly, guesses around the newsroom put it somewhere in the region of $100,000.
If it is, it would be pretty nice money for someone who has only been out of university a few years, and we would guess that the hotel managers in this city, who have been collecting a two-per-cent hotel tax which goes to Tourism Prince George, would be like to know how the money is being spent.
Tourism P.G. is being funded in part by this tax on the rates visitors pay to stay in the city's hotel and motel rooms which is expected to raise as much as $480,000 by the end of this year, with about $70,000 collected over the first two months.
Maybe Kelly was a real go-getter at the city and this is exactly what is needed at Tourism P.G.?
He should probably hang onto his helmet though.
