The Town of Drumheller is spearheading an initiative to help bring more tourists to the area and have them stay longer.
    The Town is aiming to set up a meeting with tourism stakeholders in the Drumheller Valley before the end of the year. The goal would be to begin organizing a non profit destination marketing organization.
    “It’s a priority, let’s get it going,” said Mayor Terry Yemen. “After signing that memorandum of understanding, it’s rekindled everything. I brought it [destination marketing] to administration and said it’s time to make it happen.”
    It is hoped a meeting would help resolve how a destination marketing organization would be organized and how revenue is generated.
    The main stakeholders include the Town of Drumheller, the Drumheller and District Chamber of Commerce, Royal Tyrrell Museum, Atlas Coal Mine, Passion Play, Rosebud Theatre, Dinosaur Trail Golf and Country Club, hotels, and more.
    Many of those listed already work together as part of the Drumheller Consortium on destination marketing initiatives.
    “They would be the keys to moving forward on developing an organization,” said Paul Salvatore, Director of Community Services. “The Drumheller Marketing Consortium is a natural fit to move forward on a future organization.”
    Destination marketing, a tool utilized by other towns that rely on tourism, was brought to the attention of Town Council in March of 2011 when they received the Tourism Master Plan.
    The document, prepared by Malone Given Parson Ltd., Western Management Consultants, Reach Market Planning LLC, and HDR I iTrans, included a recommendation to create an organization that would coordinate the tourism interests of the region.
    Since the document was released, little movement had been made to establish a destination marketing organization.
    Such an organization, it is hoped, would help tourists seek out more of what the area has to offer.
    “We have all kinds of attractions to keep people entertained and staying in Drumheller. We need to develop a unified message that helps drive the traffic to Drumheller. Then make sure those businesses that support tourism in Drumheller benefit from that,” said Salvatore. “That only is possible if we work together in partnership and achieve what we agree upon is on our common vision.”
    No meeting is scheduled as of yet, but the goal is to meet and have the initial groundwork completed by the end of the year.

    The Town of Drumheller is hoping to attract more Hollywood productions to the Drumheller area.
    In the September 21 edition of inSide Drumheller, Mayor Terry Yemen described the Town’s plans, which would culminate in lobbying the provincial government, and how Alberta needs to do more to attract productions.
    The Drumheller Mail had a chance to talk with Jeff Brinton, the Alberta Film Commissioner, to learn more about how Alberta entices productions to film in the province.
    In Drumheller’s case, or any rural community hoping to attract productions, Brinton felt the best approach was working within the system.
    “We have an Alberta Film Advisory Council, for the purposes of providing advice on improving our competitiveness. Engaging with Alberta Film and the Advisory Council would be a great start. I’ve had good experience with that,” said Brinton.
    “We could work with all rural communities to ensure they’re  doing everything they can to make themselves as attractive as possible.”
    There has been a surge in the past two years in the number of productions being filmed in Alberta. AMC’s Hell on Wheels is filmed in southern Alberta and Heartland has been filmed in Alberta for all of its seven seasons. Brinton indicated there were also a number of productions slated to shoot in the fall and winter.
    In Drumheller, filming for the opening scene of The Seventh Son earlier in the summer poured a considerable amount of money into the town in only a few days. Prior to that, it had been eight years since a major production filmed in Drumheller.
    “There was a steep decline in production, but business seems to be picking up in the number of productions looking at and committing to shoot in Alberta. There’s been a dramatic increase in last year and this year in particular. Prior to that the production volume was considerably low mostly due to the global economic crisis and high dollar,” said Brinton. “We’ve continued to tweak our guidelines and increase the attractiveness of our program.”
    Unlike other provinces, who offer tax credits to productions, Alberta has chosen to go a different route.
    “Through the Alberta Multimedia Development Fund, we support film production through a grant program,” said Brinton. “It’s similar to the tax credit other programs offer. This program has advantages over the tax credit option in speed of payout and ease of application.”
    “When we compared base funding with other provinces, Alberta has a very competitive
incentive program for attracting productions.”
    Each year, Alberta has a budget of $20 million to give to productions through the Development Fund. However, each production can only receive up to $5 million. The goal is to ensure no one production monopolizes the fund.
    The cap aims to ensure there is money available for many different productions, such as documentaries, television, indie films, and more.
    “With that cap, we’re typically good for a $20 million to $25 million Alberta spend, we only provide incentives to the money spent in the province. Typically, for Hollywood films, we’re good for around a $40 million dollar budget,” said Brinton. “I think the largest Alberta spend in recent years is around $20 million.”
    In the meantime, the Town of Drumheller has assigned Bob Cromwell, the Economic Development Officer, with the task of researching what incentives other provinces offer. From there, Drumheller and other municipal governments in the area hope to lobby to bring more productions, and therefore money, to the area.