Association boosts business

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"Good morning, Nuu-chah-nulth Booking and Information Centre. How can I help you?"

The friendly voice at the end of the line belongs to Melody Charlie, a calm 21-year-old sitting in the busy, sunlit centre office, surrounded by papers and computer paraphernalia. Serenity is definitely a benefit, although not a prerequisite, for her job.

As soon as Charlie finished giving information on a whale watching tour to one person on the Nuu-chah-nulth Booking and Information Centre line, another line lit up. Answering that call, she looked up at an elderly couple entering the small bright office and nodded hello to them.

"Spring break is really busy," Charlie said as soon as she got a break from the phones. "But June to August is frantic."

The booking centre advertises itself as a "one-stop First Nations' tourism resource centre," and represents 10 Native businesses running whale watching tours to hiking adventures.

One more tourist comes into the office asking about whale watching. While Charlie tries to contact the operator, he joins the couple in leafing through tour pamphlets and post cards available on a wall unit.

"Joe, we've got three people wanting to go on the morning tour," called Charlie into a radiophone from the centre.

There was a short, static-filled pause, then an affirmative answer from Joe Martin to go ahead and book the tourists. Usually the whale watching tour runs with a minimum of four clients, but yesterday was a slow day and Martin decides to take advantage of what's available.

"If this were run by a council, I would have had to phone someone then set up a committee meeting to discuss the pros and cons of bending the rules," he later said. "And of course by that time, the clients would have gone somewhere else."

Being part of an independent business association allows him the freedom to make such on-the-spot decisions, with a minimum of red tape, he said. Additional advantages of belonging to the association are splitting the costs of running an office and having their own booking place.

"Business has increased because of centralized services," said Martin. "Last year most of the businesses increased 40 to 50 per cent. Our office deals with our people first instead of having to wait for other businesses overflow."

Prior to establishing the booking centre, Martin and other operators without offices booked through established tour companies with facilities. Those took a percentage for the booking service as well as having first bid on the tourists.

"When I started in 1987 there were only three companies running whale watching tours. There wasn't a whole lot of competition for customers back then. We would just walk to the bank with our profits every day and didn't see a need for our own office."

Now there are 12 tour companies plying the tour trade.

"The other businesses were going crazy and we were left on the dock," Martin said.

Idle talk by the dock with other boat owners like Tom Curly and Feliz Thomas turned more serious as they watched clients go with the competition. More people were phoning ahead for information instead of just walking down to the Main Street dock to hop on a tour boat. By the winter of 1993 they had formed an association and became incorporated as a non-profit society. Hesquilt, Ucletet, Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahausat members joined the association, incorporating water taxis, adventure hikes and hot springs tours to the operation.

They were hoping to raise business by a few per cent. It skyrocketed from one per cent of the tourism trade in Tofino to 13 per cent within the first few months.