By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

The Oliver Tourism Association’s (OTA) budget presentation sparked debate over what percentage of the budget the Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) Area C should be paying for Oliver Tourism. 

Ian Lobb, Executive Director of the OTA presented the budget overview to the Oliver Town Council on March 27. The presentation overviewed the tourism industry of 2022, various impacts and challenges to the OTA, marketing and event initiatives from 2022, and the OTA strategy for 2023 including the budget and the focus for the association. 

Director of Area C Rick Knodel was particularly concerned about the percentage that Area C is paying into Oliver Tourism. “The OTA is a valuable service for sure, but most of the benefit, without a doubt, goes to the town,” he explained. 

“Part of my duty is to look at what the benefit is to Area C, and whether the disposition is fair. That is part of the discussion that we will have.” The approval of the budget for 2024 and how much each contributes is still to be worked out.

Councillor Petra Veintimilla asked Lobb about the impacts across Area C and the municipality. Lobb responded, “it affects everybody, it really does. Our destination is really different from the rest of the destinations throughout the valley. We are not a resort lake town, we are the wine capital. So we are arts, we are culture, we are food, we are festivals, we are a different entity, so it really impacts all of RDOS Area C and the Town of Oliver.”

Knodel addressed the benefits for both areas also by adding that “at this point I am not asking for funding for Loose Bay, I am not looking for funding for the Fairview town site, but a little quid pro quo would go a long way to help things out here.”

Councillor Veintimilla responded agreeing that these are fair discussions to have, but did not think it made a lot of budgetary sense that they should be dealt with “meshed together”. 

“If we are participating in something, like it is a joint service, then we should be paying our share, and not boosting it up a little over here because there is a little less over there,” she continued.

Knodel responded, “fair enough, then I would have to start using Osoyoos as an example, Director Mark Pendegraft [RDOS Area A] tells me his donation to Osoyoos Tourism, their similar program is $12,000, I am at $22,000, they have a much heavier load, so I am trying to get a balance out here for my residents in the rural area too and my rural businesses.” 

There will therefore be robust discussion on this going forward. Town council and Knodel agreed that these conversations need to be conducted soon. 

These budgetary discussions are important for the OTA right now with Lobb highlighting how the cost of everything is going up and that translates to events too. 

“In 2019, to rent 24 porta potties, was $2,100, in 2022 it was $6,400 for the same amount of porta potties. Fencing was up by 200 per cent. We are all aware of the incremental costs that have taken place.” 

“I think anybody would say they always have more opportunity with more money . . . to do the things we need to do, to hire staff, and not just to hire staff but quality staff, and then to retain staff.”

The latter staffing challenge has been a particular concern with the plans to get a cafe into the Oliver Visitor Centre for example. 

The cafe proposal for the Oliver Visitor Centre is on hold due to OTA not being able to find a local business to run it. 

It is difficult to find a business to take on a cafe at the visitors centre. There are many challenges to staffing. No one had the capability and the finances to actually support a cafe outside or have a secondary location or a second business,” Lobb explained.  

Town Council, Knodel, and Lobb agreed to have staff set up this meeting soon to get these issues figured out.