Friday, May 2, 2008 - New servers are in! Click-in for more info!
VoyForums

[ VoyUser Login optional ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 04:33:41 04/28/04 Wed
Author: Don Johnson
Subject: CONSTRUCTIVE AND SELF DESTRUCTIVE FISHERIES MARKETING

CONSTRUCTIVE AND SELF DESTRUCTIVE FISHERIES MARKETING

Some are saying that there is trouble in paradise with regard to our Kenai River silver salmon runs.
Lately much of our local Kenai River fisheries management attention has been tightly focused on finding
solutions to problems within the rivers first run of king salmon.
These early run king problems have drawn much attention away from other Kenai run problems.
Many people now believe that Kenai River silver runs have become very unpredictable.
Kenai River silver runs appear to be swinging from "spectacular" to "depressing". The current
2003 Kenai River silver run appears to be hitting both of these extremes. The 2002 silver season pretty
much hit the spectacular side of the swing.
These unpredictable run swings seemed to have also worried the Alaska Board of Fish so much that
they were convinced there is a Kenai silver escapement problem. The Board was convinced of this run
problem even as the ADF&G possesses a giant information vacume on Kenai silver escapement prior to 1999.
When you attempt to examine historical Kenai silver escapements, you come up against a
gaint wall of a lack of historical silver information.The truth is that the ADF&G possesses very little
good Kenai silver escapement data before1999.

The Kenai may experience highs and lows within its other salmon runs but those swings have been
mostly stablized by clearly defined fisheries management plans.
The Kenai River silver salmon fishery needs to have the same kind of management goals as it has for
its other salmon fisheries. Since we currently lack pre 1999 Kenai silver data it is difficult to generate a
long-term and therefore stable sportfishery goal on this run.
Because of this lack of planning the Soldotna / Kenai area cannot expect to generate stable tourism or
sales tax revenue dollars like Seward is now generating.
While Kenai River silver bag limits are declining, Seward silver bag limits are expanding.
Seward silver salmon access along with its tourism marketing campaigns are expanding while many Kenai
River tourism campaigns are reducing. Past Kenai River user access has destabilized because
the fishery has destabilized. Soldotna / Kenai, fall ecomomic destabilization has resulted from this tourism destabilization and the tourism destabilization has resulted from drastic fisheries
access changes like the reduction in the Kenai River silver bag limits.
Reduced Kenai River user access along with expanded Seward user access has produced a very pronounced
shift in the flow of tourism dollars from the Kenai River area and into the Seward area.
This pronounced shift in the flow of late season tourisum dollars has therefore resulted in an increased
need for additional Kenai River tourism marketing.

All of these factors appear to conclude that the Kenai River silver salmon fishery requires a more
comprehensive and intense economic and fisheries management plan to stablize the possible
benefits to the Soldotna and Kenai.area.
This information concludes that the Kenai River area requires increased tourism marketing to compensate
for the negative factors which have been systematically reducing Kenai River users access.
It appears logical to implement both a fisheries management and marketing solution as soon as possible.
It also appears logical that these solutions must be implemented at the same time, one without the other would
mean failure of both. The application of run stablization without increased sportfish marketing would be as
counter productive and increasing marketing without run stablization. These solutions should be
implemented side-by-side in a double barrel approach.
Increased fall tourism marketing without first stablizing these silver runs would only further reduce bag limits thus
producing an increased negative end result. Also fisheries stablization without increased marketing would not
allow the Kenai River area to benefit from the increased user access.

In Conclusion, once increased silver salmon user access is reached on the Kenai River then increased
silver marketing becomes possible and constructive.
A constructive fisheries market solution must include both an economic and fisheries management package.
This package must be applied within a double-barrel approach to result in a real - long-term -
tourism marketing solution.
In short, attempting to sell a fishing trip when there is a real lack of fish is self destructive fisheries marketing .
A Constructive Plan
A constructive marketing plan would be to first establish a plan to at least bring back the Kenai's silver salmon
daily bag limit to 3 silvers per day with a future goal of reaching 6 per day. This fisheries management goal
should be directly tied to a future marketing plan to promote the increased bag limit.
The core of this plan would be to first restore the user access and then market that increased access.
It is central to constructive planning to not attempt to market a silver fishery which is in decline
and lacks a plan to restore or increase it's future user access.

Thank you for interest in this important issue.


Don Johnson
Soldotna , Alaska
ccpwow@gci.net

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 2.94, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2008 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.