Newfoundland and Labrador Product Development Strategy

- 165 -significant gaps, such that growth in tourism visitation and/or spending is being constrainedas a direct consequence. Also, the gap should exist for more than just July and August.There is good evidence from our research across the province that higher star grade propertiesperform better in terms of occupancy overall, as well as with occupancy rates in the shoulderseasons. This also needs to be a consideration in the evaluation process, in two ways. First, ifthe accommodation being proposed is of higher quality than existing accommodations in thearea, it is likely to be differentiated from, and perform better than its competitors. Secondly,if the available accommodations in an area are of generally low quality, adding a new qualityfacility may be exactly what is needed to rejuvenate the area’s competitiveness.Of course, in situations where there is little or no competitive impact, the competitive issueneed not arise.We now turn to how the question should be addressed where there is not a clear business caseto ignore the issue or downgrade it to a low level, in other words, where it needs to beseriously addressed.Assessing Competitive ImpactsVarious approaches to assessing competitive impacts have been considered, some moreelaborate than others. In the end, any approach is subject to judgement and thereforepotentially controversial. At the same time, if the method used is one that isolates the variousconsiderations and allows them to be considered separately, a better outcome can be achieved.By dealing with different issues separately, the challenge is simplified and the judgement callsmade more reliable. Also, by dealing with issues separately and then aggregating theevaluations as a second step, a more sophisticated and valid overall assessment can beachieved.We offer Exhibit 8 as an example of what we believe can be a simple but valid competitiveimpacts assessment model. This is for a ‘demand influencing property’, in this case acountry inn. A similar model would be used for ‘filling gap in supply’.More customized models might need to be developed for ‘multi-season resort’, ‘wildernesslodge’ and ‘specialty niche market property’, but the same approach would apply.We have entered data to illustrate how the model would be used to assess a proposed multiseasonresort project, either a new project or a major expansion. The general criteriaintroduced earlier for such projects have been adapted for the competitive impact assessment.In other words, the same criteria would be used so that a new project, or expansion, could becompared to other properties in the area in terms of what might be gained over them withrespect to the overall objectives of the ultimate strategy. (Note that traditional financialassessment criteria would be treated separately, outside of the model, including financialviability, management competence and equity available. It is assumed that these would besatisfactory and that only the competitive impact issue is at play in this particular evaluation.)THE ECONOMIC PLANNING GROUP of Canada Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism Product DevelopmentD. W. Knight Associates Strategy and Accommodation Needs Study