Jasper Tourism and Commerce members decided not to approve the organization’s draft budget for 2006 at the usual time last week, after the meeting held on Valentine’s Day suffered from low attendance.

“We had quorum but we’d rather have more people there than not,” said treasurer Kevin Henderson, who is responsible for presenting the organization’s budget to its members.

The group is in good financial health, turning a small profit in 2005, and the budget for the year ahead is nothing out of the ordinary, Henderson said.

“It’s very much a status-quo budget.”

 The organization, made up of local businesses and intended to promote and market Jasper as a destination, spent about $10,000 less than expected last year. Tourism and Commerce plans its revenues and expenditures to break even every year.

While the news is good overall, the 2005 actuals reveal several interesting discrepancies between the budgeted and real amounts. 

Tourism and Commerce spent almost three times its budget on special events and projects — more than $45,000 in total. According to Henderson, this differential is due to the cost of producing a new promotional video for Jasper, as well as expenses relating to the Tourism Industry Association of Canada conference, which will be held at the Jasper Park Lodge in October. Tourism and Commerce will be covering the cost of one evening at the conference as the host organization.

“It’s sort of a catch-all for a number of partnership opportunites that we had,” Henderson said of the large amount of money.

The group also paid out almost $7,500 to the Jasper Marketing Group, a smaller body of Chamber veterans charged with designing a model for a specific tourism marketing organization in town. Costs relating to this initiative had not been part of the 2005 budget. The money went towards a study commissioned from a Calgary consulting firm. For 2006, Tourism and Commerce has budgeted $5,000 to finance the marketing group’s activities.

A new budget package has been prepared and distributed in advance of the group’s March meeting, when Henderson expects the draft budget to be approved. As requested by those members who did attend the February get-together, this updated information includes a brief explanation for every line item that reveals a difference from budgeted to actual amounts of greater than 10 per cent.

Robson House, the location of the Tourism and Commerce offices on Patricia Street, did not cost the organization as much as expected last year. Nearly $20,000 worth of improvements and renovations were planned in 2005, including the replacement of the building’s roof, but these alterations were not completed. Instead, the organization was able to more than double its 2005 annual loan payment for the long-term capital project.