Dear Editor:
The South Okanagan promotes itself as a great tourist destination and one of the prominent activities is the cuisine and wines of the area.
As regular visitors to the region, we find it very disappointing that the local tourism authority, Destination Osoyoos, the wineries that offer special dinner events, and the many wine tour companies cannot get their act together to allow visitors to fully enjoy the experience.
Current drinking and driving laws inhibit the visitor from enjoying the wines with dinner.
On rare occasions like the Festival of the Grape in Oliver, there are some co-ordinated shuttles available, but why can’t this not be done for all events?
For those with no knowledge of the area and not knowing the names of the various tour companies, it is next to impossible to find out who is going where and when and at what cost.
I am suggesting that the interested parties get together and create a calendar for each month covering the whole year.
For example, a proactive company makes itself available to the entire community for one weekend or one night of a weekend per month and other companies offer their services on another weekend or day.
This could be on a rotation basis to spread the ‘good’ days around.
This could be communicated to all the hotels, resorts, RV campgrounds in advance and to all the event co-ordinators so visitors immediately know who is willing to make money carrying them to the experience safely.
During the wine festivals, obviously more companies could provide service at the same time.
This would save the visitor from having to call around to hopefully entice a company to provide safe transportaion to and from the event(s).
Perhaps this letter will stir up some interest in providing convenient service to South Okanagan visitors.
Thank you for allowing me to write about this issue.
Lindsay Thachuk
Lower Mainland
B.C.
