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#61 Holden West

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 05:18 PM

Apparently they owe 8.5 million dollars. I think they were duped by insanely optimistic marketers that did their business plan. Mel Cooper was on the news saying they told him their plan was in fact financially conservative!

I mean the signs that the summer of 2006 would be a rough one for all in the tourist business were clear as day to everyone.
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#62 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 05:27 PM

^ It's not going to get any better soon with the US passport restrictions coming in. After Dec 31 this year you need a passport to go and come by Clipper.
<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#63 G-Man

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 05:28 PM

I thought it was Dec 31 2007.

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#64 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 05:39 PM

I thought it was Dec 31 2007.


I was just off by a few days....

http://travel.state....cbpmc_2223.html

In the proposed implementation plan, which is subject to a period of initial public comment, the Initiative will be rolled out in phases, providing as much advance notice as possible to the affected public to enable them to meet the terms of the new guidelines. The proposed timeline will be as follows:

January 8, 2007 - Requirement applied to all air and sea travel to or from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda.

January 1, 2008 - Requirement extended to all land border crossings as well as air and sea travel.


This table indicates passport ownership, although at 34% that seems awful high compared to what I have read elsewhere.

2005 Survey Results United States Canada
General population (18 years and over) 34% 41%
Same-day travellers (transborder) 44% 60%
Overnight auto travellers (transborder) 50% 70%
Overnight air travellers (transborder) 67% 75%

The percentages of passport holders among those who travel between the two countries might help to make better comparisons with Europeans travelling between countries.
<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#65 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 06:25 PM

B.C. Experience seeks creditor protection
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Visitors study the giant map at B.C. Experience.
Photograph by : Times-Colonist
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Font: * * * * Andrew A. Duffy, Times-Colonist
Published: Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The B.C. Experience, Victoria’s newest tourist attraction, filed for creditor protection yesterday just two months and 24 days after opening its doors.

Citing debts of $8.5 million owed to 228 creditors and lower-than-expected revenues, the $20 million attraction which opened June 26 in the Crystal Garden, opted for protection while it restructures its debt over the next month with a view to keeping its doors open.

"We have had a very difficult opening summer," said executive director John Thomson, citing what he called "record low" tourism numbers as the main reason behind the decision to file for protection. "Start-up costs of the first year, record-low visitation, it’s put us in a situation where we have some very difficult challenges and we needed some time to sort them out."

The intertwined Crystal Garden Partners (the developer) and the B.C. Experience Society (the operator of the attraction) will now have 10 days to file with trustee Gene Drennan a cash-flow estimate, which will outline the company’s expectations of revenue and liabilities over the next few months.

The attraction also has 21 days, unless it obtains an extension from the courts, to file a proposal of repayment to its 227 unsecured creditors owed $3 million and lone secured creditor, the Royal Bank which is owed $5.5 million.

When that proposal is finished the creditors will either vote to accept the terms or vote the company into bankruptcy. Drennan said that vote will take place later this fall.

"Because of our opening this summer we needed to make significant changes for the future and this was the option that seemed fair to everybody to create time to restructure," said Thomson. "When you have a problem, the sooner you recognize it and deal with it the better."

The news of the decision to seek protection came as a shock to the industry, as did the reason the B.C. Experience gave for its troubles.

"Certainly we know it can sometimes take a little while for a new business to get up and running and obviously they felt they weren’t getting the numbers," said Lorne Whyte, CEO of Tourism Victoria. "But I was shocked and disappointed when I got this."

Whyte was further surprised to hear the attraction cite low tourism numbers as its biggest issue.

"We have a reasonable number of visitors, we’re running ahead in most sectors," he said, noting accommodation numbers, the largest indicator, is three per cent ahead of last year at this point.

That fact gives rise to speculation the B.C. Experience was suffering not from lack of revenue but from the high construction costs incurred and the need to sink more money into the $20 million project.
<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#66 Holden West

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 07:30 PM

Nowhere is it mentioned the real reason--the streets were crawling with tourists this year. They simply decided BCX wasn't worth the admission.

If you build it, they might not come.

The only way to salvage it would be a massive, expensive marketing campaign.
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#67 G-Man

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 07:35 PM

Maybe they could advertise on the side of buses?

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#68 Mike K.

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 07:56 PM

Hey, who called it that they'd go into protection within a few months? Somebody here did but I can't remember who.

Question: why would anyone want to see a slideshow of BC?

The Experience has got to be one of the lamest tourist gigs I've ever experienced. I bet the zoo had lost less money than this thing.

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#69 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 08:12 PM

The only way to salvage it would be a massive, expensive marketing campaign.


I'm guessing that 200 of those 228 creditors are media outlets.
<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#70 Holden West

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 08:15 PM

^Ha! You're probably right. BCX's solution is part of their problem.
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

#71 zoomer

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 09:26 PM

wow, shocking (sorta). But you know maybe those disgruntled Crystal Garden supporters knew something when they hinted that the plan all along was for the BC X to lose big money, then apply to have the building turned into a casino as the only viable means of maintaining an important piece of Victoria's heritage..

kinda makes you go hmmmm....

#72 aastra

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Posted 19 September 2006 - 09:32 PM

I think an indoor arboretum could work. Throw in some small animals and maybe a few birds.

I would have loved to see somebody make that place work as a bus and/or LRT station or something along those lines.

#73 Scaper

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Posted 20 September 2006 - 12:22 AM

How about an indoor bobsledding run.

#74 Jarrod

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Posted 20 September 2006 - 12:36 AM

It's a great building. I've never been in it, but the outside is awesome. What exactly was in it before? Was it kinda like a zoo or something?

#75 G-Man

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Posted 20 September 2006 - 06:41 AM

^ a public pool then it became a sort of nature reserve.

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#76 gumgum

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Posted 20 September 2006 - 06:52 AM

Didn't something similar happen in at the Moxies? Wasn't the building bought by someone else, who spent a ****-load of money to revamp the place, but then went bankrupt because the initial investment amount was way too much? And then Moxies bought the place at a steal, doing virtually nothing to the place and reaping the benefits to what te previous owners had done.
Perhaps history will repeat itself. Obvious the whole "Experience" idea will have to be revisited.
How 'bout an indoor beer garden?

#77 G-Man

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Posted 20 September 2006 - 08:08 AM

Yup! It was originally a Med Grill. Then they closed sold to Moxies and then reopened in the Mosaic Building.

It seems to be a common theme in Victoria actually.

The Canoe Club was originally an abandonned electric plant when it was fixed up it went millions over budget. Someone bought the place just at the last moment and saved it from being abandonned again. I beleive the new buyer actually took a loss on it but did it because he loved the place so much. He has since sold it hence the relatively new name change to Canoe Brew Pub.

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#78 gumgum

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Posted 20 September 2006 - 08:48 AM

Hmm. Caneo's name change hadn't registered before.

#79 gumgum

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Posted 21 September 2006 - 07:36 AM

I was half asleep when I heard this on the radio this morning. A critic of the Experience on CBC radio was speculatiing the people behind the whole thing made it crappy and uninteresting on purpose, so they can pursue what they really want there: a casino. Did anybody else hear this?

#80 Holden West

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Posted 21 September 2006 - 08:53 AM

Someone said that when it initially opened and I thought they were being silly. Now it seems incredibly prescient. I mean how could experience businessmen not realize construction costs would be high and the first few months of operation would be a write-off?

Editorial

An unhappy experience

Taxpayers should be told why the latest enterprise in the Crystal Garden is in trouble


Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, September 21, 2006

In announcing in December 2004 that the B.C. Experience would operate a multi-media tourist attraction as the main tenant of the old Crystal Garden, Provincial Capital Commission chairman Bill Welburn declared: "We know for at least 10 years that we've got a solid tenant." On Tuesday, after two months and 24 days of operation, and reeling from debt, the unhappy experience seems to be ending. It looks about as solid as the foam from which its main exhibit, a map of B.C., was made.

Not everyone will be surprised. Situated on a spot on that map where nothing new is ever done easily, the latest scheme for the Crystal was raged against and sneered at from birth. Mel Cooper, the irrepressible president of the Experience, recalled last month someone snarling: "I hope this place goes to hell and you go to hell with it." At that time, Cooper was beginning to give the impression that not enough people were paying the fare -- $14.95 for adults -- to see the map and try the interactive exploration stations that would beam them to other parts of the province. Success was predicated on more than 360,000 visitors a year.

Cooper suggested the heat of this summer was to blame -- there was concern an air-conditioning failure could ruin the official opening in June and the glass roof made the place pretty uncomfortable -- and he suggested the enterprise should have reeling in more folks from cruise ships and tour businesses.

There were also those who lamented the demise of the mini-zoo and conservatory that occupied it before the Provincial Capital Commission, proclaiming a mandate to connect the province to its capital and vice versa, decided lemurs and banana trees weren't native to B.C. and had no business in the place.

And there were many who decided if they wanted to see what Smithers was like, they'd go there rather than crawl into a time machine downtown, and that if they wanted to see orcas, they'd go to sea rather than play among the plastic ones.

The B.C. Experience might have pulled in more people in the 1950s.

That's where the idea for the huge map came from -- a plywood one at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver.

That was before the Internet and all its wonders risked making interactive experiences in a warehouse of replications totally boring to kids.

A lot of people raised these concerns from the start, and now the B.C. Experience is asking for protection from creditors while it tries to restructure $8.5 million in debt. Critics should take no pleasure from this: Drinking tea in a cloud of chlorine fumes is so passe. So is fox-trotting under sweating glass.

Staring at monkeys among ferns occupies one for only so long.

We needed a new experience at the Crystal, and if this one turns out not to be it, at least Cooper and his associates made a creditable effort. The wonder is that they're in trouble without having a full year's experience of the Experience.

That's where taxpayers' questions begin. The Provincial Capital Commission, a Crown corporation, put up $3.6 million of our money to restore the exterior of the Crystal; the Experience put up $700,000 as pre-paid rent to be recovered over 10 years.

But the commission thinks other details are none of our business, It won't make the contract public. Secret deals that fail and lose us money are other kinds of experience we can do without.
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2006
"Beaver, ahoy!""The bridge is like a magnet, attracting both pedestrians and over 30,000 vehicles daily who enjoy the views of Victoria's harbour. The skyline may change, but "Big Blue" as some call it, will always be there."
-City of Victoria website, 2009

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