Tourism P.E.I.'s deal with NHL draws mixed reaction

Opposition politicians on P.E.I. are questioning the value of a new deal between the National Hockey League and Tourism Prince Edward Island, while the provincial tourism minister is defending it. 

The province announced Tuesday that it had entered into a three-year marketing partnership with the league that will see the Island branded as the NHL's official travel destination.

The provincial government is paying the NHL $2.5 million for the first year of the agreement, with an option to back out or renew after that. 

"I don't oppose the fact that we need to promote Prince Edward Island," said Liberal MLA Robert Henderson, who was the province's tourism minister from 2011 to 2015. "I guess I'd like to know what the return on investment on that [deal] is."  

Henderson acknowledged he doesn't know the details of the deal, but questioned spending that much money on it while Islanders struggle with issues such as health-care access. 

The MLA, who also served as the province's health minister from 2015 to 2018, pointed out that the $2.5 million cost brings the tourism marketing budget to $8 million for the year, well over the current $4.7-million budget for health-care recruitment on P.E.I.

"I would argue that maybe if you need to spend more money on something on Prince Edward Island, that would be one thing that we would look at," Henderson said. 

Green Party MLA Peter Bevan-Baker said the fact that you can't measure how well this type of investment works is a problem. 

"It's notoriously difficult to track the impact of a particular investment on something like tourism, because it fluctuates from year to year for a whole bunch of reasons," said Bevan-Baker. 

P.E.I.'s tourism sector is also feeling "tapped out," he said, and he's spoken to tourist providers across the Island who had trouble keeping up with demand last year. 

"Why are we spending unbudgeted funds on something that may actually exacerbate an already existing problem, which is that the Island actually isn't able to cater properly to the tourists that want to come here in the first place?"

Bevan-Baker also said that given the ongoing issues around health-care services on P.E.I., the announcement of the deal seemed like "misplaced priorities" at work. 

The new deal is targeting NHL fans in Ontario and New England, said Cory Deagle, P.E.I.'s minister of fisheries, tourism, sport and culture. 

Deagle said he hasn't seen any calculations on the expected return on investment, but said the amount of marketing P.E.I. is getting through the deal would typically cost more than $15 million to buy.