Spring is on its way and so come the tourists who look to enjoy the outdoor activities the area has to offer.
Warm, sunny weather entices visitors to seek out recreational back-country pursuits while shedding the depressive winter doldrums that infect the soul from being shuttered inside during the cold, dark winter months, so the Times caught up with Tourism Wells Gray (TWG) to see what’s lined up for the 2019 tourism season.
“There’s a whole multitude of (activities),” said Stephanie Molina, tourism marketing manager for TWG.
“The real catch always starts with the iconic waterfalls in the area and a lot of the hiking experiences, but we really push a lot of our guided experiences as well like white water rafting, boat tours, horseback riding, flight tours and paragliding.”
TWG will also be supporting a number of local events through sponsorship like the Summer Solstice in Wells Gray disc golf tournament in June and the Candle Creek Half Marathon taking place in August.
In addition, the organization will continue its Stargazing and Sci-fi Movie Nights throughout the summer, which are another popular attraction for tourists and locals alike.
“We found those were really successful and provided a lot of benefit for our visitors looking for things to do in the evenings,” Molina said.
“We found at least half of the people who came to the events were tourists, which was great to see.”
The Stargazing and Sci-fi Movie Nights offer attendees a chance to sit back and enjoy goofy vintage science fiction films while taking in educational presentations from a professional astronomer.
Destination development is an area TWG will focus more on this year, which means looking at the experiences the area provides and figuring out how to maintain them as well as promote the development of new ones, while tackling any challenges within the area of tourism.
“We’ll be looking at organizing some volunteer events to work on some trails that might need a bit of love and looking at some grant proposals for infrastructure and projects that would help our visitor experience,” added Molina.
“We are seeing pretty steady growth year after year and I think with a lot of the media attention we’ve got over the last year, that’s certainly going to be helpful in bringing more visitors to our area, so we have to be conscious about how we’re going to be a good host community to the visitors that come here and are an important part of our economy.”
For the past couple of years TWG contributed money to the Wells Gray Park Information Centre so it can open a week earlier than usual and close a week later in the fall, something that will continue this year as well
Molina said this is because people have been coming to the area earlier each year and staying a bit later, with the volume of visitors also increasing annually, adding up to more than 100,000 visitors coming through town each year.
“People like to think of May long weekend as when things start kicking off, but visitors start arriving as early as April,” she said.
“We also saw a huge impact just in the hotel numbers for 2018, with almost twice as many people coming through in April and May than the year before.”
As a way to add to its budget, TWG is taking part in a program with Destination BC, which will see it enter into a marketing consortium with the Cariboo-Chilcotin Coast, the Fishing Highway 24 and Lower North Thompson; after pooling its money with these partners, Destination BC will match the total amount.
“We have $40,000 for advertising and marketing, which will be used for digital and print campaigns that’ll promote our area, then this year we’re entering into the new consortium to feature different experiences and reach new audiences,” Molina said.
“That’ll give us access to $50,000 in marketing funds and all of that certainly adds up for a bigger impact.”