Thank you. The auditors noted that Economic Development and Tourism does not have an effective, overall marketing strategy that matches product to demand. They emphasized this need in their discussion of arts and crafts. They suggest that a marketing strategy should focus on maximizing benefits to the communities.

Committee Members feel that an essential element of the marketing strategy is collecting and distributing market information to people in the communities who need to be aware of the outside market. They need to know whether there will be buyers for the products that the community produces. The auditors noted that a marketing strategy is also required to govern the tourist industry.

In the summer of 1994, Economic Development and Tourism produced the Northwest Territories tourism marketing strategy, 1994-95 to 1998-99. The strategy is based on data that its author describes as failed. Further, they said, "we've had to make some educated guesses about the status of the industry's current customer base."

Given these qualifiers, committee Members question the utility of this strategy. Therefore, our committee makes the following recommendation: