The best “Staycation” in BC is the one in your own backyard, according to Minister of State for Tourism and Small Business Naomi Yamamoto.
She brought this new campaign to Oliver and Osoyoos recently while touring the Okanagan.
The minister visited Kismet and Hester Creek wineries with Boundary-Similkameen MLA Linda Larson and Beth Garrish from the Oliver Tourism Association.
The ministry has launched two videos encouraging British Columbians to take their vacation close to home.
Yamamoto told the Chronicle that 127,000 people work in the tourism sector in BC (one in 15 jobs in the province).
In 2011, this sector generated revenues of $13.4 billion.
“We can all contribute to our economy by exploring our local attractions and taking in summer events, festivals and outdoor markets. When you take a ‘staycation’, you’re not only supporting vital businesses in your town or city, you’re also helping to create jobs in BC,” Yamamoto said.
Larson said her “staycation” will be at Beaver Lake this year, while Garrish said hers will be a trip to Vancouver Island.
Yamamoto said the province is seeing a return of the US market in BC, noting that Americans are the number one visitor to BC.
She pointed out that the Oliver Tourism Association is an important entity that attracts many volunteers and “gives a lot of students their first job.”
Yamamoto knows that Oliver is working to entice a hotel to the community, and she noted that such a venture would be great for the town.
“It may be a foreign investor . . . trade follows tourism,” she stated.
The Chronicle discovered that Yamamoto is an avid angler who loves fishing for steelhead.
When asked if she had a story about the one that didn’t get away, she immediately told the tale of a cat that brought her luck on the Bulkley River.
She was sitting on the bank just outside of her motel room when a cat surprised her and spilled coffee on her clothes.
Yamamoto quickly changed her clothes and then started fishing from the bank, while her partner was angling upstream. It wasn’t long before she caught eight steelhead, the most she ever caught in one sitting.
See, you don’t have to leave BC for a great vacation.
Lyonel Doherty
Oliver Chronicle
