FILE PHOTO - Volunteers and evacuees are seen outside of the Sandman Centre in Kamloops, B.C. in this undated handout photo.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Jeff Putnam
April 24, 2018 - 12:47 PM
KAMLOOPS - Although it wasn’t the summer season Tourism Kamloops had anticipated, visitor numbers were slightly higher than expected in 2017.
Despite last year’s wildfire evacuations, Monica Dickinson with Tourism Kamloops says the industry had anticipated four per cent growth in visits, but actually saw a six per cent increase. In its annual report prepared for city council for today, April 24, Tourism Kamloops says it saw 1.8 million visitors throughout 2017.
“It wasn’t the tourism season we expected,” Dickinson says. “Our role shifted from helping our usual happy-go-lucky consumers to people who were coming to the city from unexpected circumstances."
A month before the wildfire evacuations began to take place last summer; Tourism Kamloops had opened their second visitor centre in downtown Kamloops. She explains the location was ideal for individuals affected by the wildfires to seek information at a convenient downtown spot.
“We had always planned on a secondary location and it just so happened that we opened at the right place and at the right time,” she says.
Last summer, roughly 36,000 people throughout the province were on an evacuation order, and on July 7 a province-wide state of emergency was issued.
Dickinson says Tourism Kamloops employees did whatever they could during last year’s wildfires to help people evacuated from their communities. They provided welcomes, weather updates, directions, and connected people with accommodation and food services.
“We didn’t have a defined role, we just extended ourselves wherever it was necessary,” Dickinson says.
A month before the evacuations, Tourism Kamloops saw record-breaking visitor numbers in June 2017.
“It was the best June we had ever seen in our history,” she says. "But when July 7 hit, our gears switched however.”
Dickinson says the municipal regional district tax revenue, which is generated through the city's accommodation industry, saw an increase from wildfire evacuees staying in hotels, but other tourism areas did not see the same growth.
"Because of the smoke in the area, wineries and golf courses didn't see an increase in business," Dickinson says.
Tourism Kamloops gathers most of their funding through the municipal regional district tax, which currently sits at three per cent. Hotels are the only industry where the tax is legislated.
Dickinson says while it was tough work, tourism employees were happy to help anyway they could.
"For a lot of people Kamloops was the first community they came in contact with after evacuating their community," Dickinson says. "We wanted to help people that had been displaced and take their minds off their community."
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