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Wednesday, May 11, 2016 The Valley Echo
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The 2nd annual Pooch Plunge at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort was graced with beautiful summer weather on May 7th, and raised $1,581.80 for local animal rescue groups GALS and ICAN. PHOTO BY KATIE WATT
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Valley Visitor Centres see more international tourists STEVE HUBRECHT steve@invermerevalleyecho.com There’s been a large jump in the number of international tourists visiting B.C. in 2016, a trend that local visitors centres are seeing out here in the Columbia Valley. The latest provincial visitor numbers, according to a recent provincial Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training press release, show that number of international visitors (which includes American tourists) is up 16.2 per cent compared with last year — an increase of 39,246 visitors. Both Visitor Centres in the valley told The Echo they’ve seen an increase in international tourists, although the Columbia Valley Visitor Centre reported just a slight increase, while the Radium Visitor Centre reported a significant increase. “Last year at this point, we’d had 45 international visitors, if you include
Americans, and so far this year we’ve “We always get a good group of Gerhad 51, so we’re up a bit,” said Colum- mans. They are typically young and bia Valley Visitor Centre manager Kathy travelling all around Canada, and Tyson on Thursday, May 5th, adding last year in particular, there definitethat the flow of such visitors has in- ly seemed to be quite a lot of visitors creased recently, with a three having from the Netherlands,” she said, addarrived that day, and another three ing the Visitor Centre at the Crossroads having arrived the also sees a number day before. “We always know of tourists from Ja“All of them were pan and China, and the tourist season gets its fair share of Americans heading to Alaska and, has truly started when we visitors from Ausin terms of interna- starting seeing Germans tralians and New tional visitors, that’s Zealand. and Swiss.” typically what we Tourism Radium KENT KEBE MANAGER, TOURISM RADIUM manager Kent Kebe get (at the Columbia Valley Visitor Centold The Echo that tre) — Americans heading up across although most of the Radium Visitor the border, through Banff and Jasper Centre’s tourists come from Alberta or on their way up to Alaska,” said Tyson. other parts of B.C., it has seen a jump She added that although Americans in the number of international tourists make up the bulk of the centre’s inter- so far this year, with 552 parties of innational visitors, they do see tourists ternational visitors (360 of them, or 55 from other parts of the world. per cent, American) having stopped
in at the centre from January through April 2016, compared with 339 such parties (232 of them American) in January through April 2015 — a 53 per cent increase. The centre gets an average number of 2.2 visitors per parties, so in terms of individual visitor numbers that translates to 1,214 international visitor so far in 2016 compared with 792 in the first four months of 2015. “It’s quite an increase, and it’s been absolutely busy here,” said Kebe. “I think it has a lot to do with the low Canadian dollar, especially for the Americans.” Kebe said that, similar to the Columbia Valley Visitor Centre, the Radium Visitor Centre gets a healthy dose of Europeans. “There are a lot of Germans,” he said. “We always know the tourist season has truly started when we starting seeing Germans and Swiss.”
Nine Lives Would Not Do The Life of Leo Grillmair Wednesday May 25, 7:30 pm at Pynelogs Tickets at the door Visit columbiavalleyarts.com for our current events calendar, or call 250-342-4423 · Pynelogs Cafe - Open Tuesday to Saturday 11 to 4 pm
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