With attractions like the Sea to Sky Gondola and Whistler-Blackcomb, the region is blessed with sites that bring in visitors from around the world.
The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District is now looking at touring route plans as a way to encourage more visitors throughout the whole area.
The board recently hired a consultant to put together a report that would look at establishing some kind of circle tour throughout the area.
“The board wanted to find a project that was regional in nature and had direct economic benefits,” regional district chair Jack Crompton told The Squamish Chief. “There’s evidence to support that it is something that could work.”
He cites examples such as presence of motorbikes and recreational vehicles that already tour through the area regularly as support for the plan.
The hope is to get people to increase their duration of stays in the area, as well as venture to all areas of the regional district, beyond the most popular ones.
As part of this, the consultant created a thorough inventory of the tourism assets in some less-visited parts of the region, as well as looking at high-return target markets, what motivates and influences travellers to visit and what gaps there are in visitors’ experiences. Even with many sites and activities that bring people to the region, the board wants to expand the number of visits and create better linkages with areas such as the South Chilcotin.
Places like Squamish, with recent additions like the Sea to Sky Gondola, are providing a model as to how to get visitors to make more stops as they travel the region.
“I don’t think you have to look very hard to see successes in tourism in the Sea to Sky Corridor,” he said. “Squamish is a roaring success…. Our goal is really to share some of the success that Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton have seen.”
Crompton cites South Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park as a nearby example of a site that is already popular with mountain bikers, hikers and snowmobilers but that could be promoted more.
“People from all over the world come there already. It’s just an opportunity to emphasize the incredible tourism assets that exist,” he said.
As the local communities in the SLRD have their own tourism offices, the regional district will be communicating with them about the circle routes idea, as well as with First Nations.
“We’re hopeful that this is something that they would be interested in,” Crompton said. “We want to listen carefully when they speak…. We see them as partners.”
He said the community tourism organizations are established institutions and he’s optimistic they will see the circle tour as something they can sell as one of their products. The regional district will discuss it in more detail with these partners at a later date.
Destination British Columbia has already been promoting a portion of the route, Crompton adds, so the goal is to build off the interest that’s already there.
“It is an established product. Our hope is that people would consider little off trips,” he said. “We’re taking something that’s reasonably established and promoting it further.”
