Faltering Loonie, Strengthening U.S. Economy, Help Boost PG Tourism
Annie Doran, marketing and communications manager at Tourism PG – photo 250 News
Prince George, B.C. – Canada’s weakening dollar and a strengthened U.S. economy have boosted the number of visitors to Prince George.
That from Annie Doran, marketing and communications manager at Tourism Prince George.
“It has been busy. It’s up quite a lot over last year already, probably 10 percent in visitor numbers.”
For example she says they’ve had 600 more visits to the Visitor Centre between May and July (8,500 total visits) and notes not all visitors are American either.
“Canada is reporting we have a really strong Chinese market and lots of international visitors coming and we notice that here too. We have lots of Europeans coming in here because they want the rustic, northern experience.”
Doran says they’ve also noticed more Canadian visitors.
“It’s interesting to note because the dollar isn’t very good, travellers are not going to the states, they’re vacationing in B.C.,” she says. “They’re staying local and we’re also getting revenue from people in Vancouver.”
Has exposure from hosting the Canada Winter Games helped?
“It’s raised awareness. It’s created a positive impression of Prince George,” says Doran. “People are a little more willing to investigate what’s going on here.”
Doran says the increase in visitors also has a spin-off effect on the rest of the local economy. “With the dollar falling people now are spending another night and spending more money and staying in a hotel instead of a camper.”
Comments
In a column in The Province, Michael Smyth reported the government is CLOSING its two tourist information centres at Vancouver Airport…one at the domestic arrivals and one at the US/International arrivals …offering visitors nothing, nada, zilch, zero, in the way of tourism advice, assistance or help finding their way anywhere.
If that’s not important ask Robert Dziekański who would still be alive today if he had been provided with assistance in his native polish language. Instead he was trapped in that same airport for over 9 hours until his untimely death at the hands of RCMP officers.
There can be no doubt that the cuts to BC Ferries services up and down our coast has also had a negative impact on tourism as well. Tourism operators in the West Chilcotin issued a report this week saying BC Ferry cuts ALONE have cost them $4 Million in lost tourism revenues … while the ferry corporation saved $725,000.
So think about that while you read this good news tourism story! Thanks Christy!!!
I am not sure why most of these organizations report only year over year activity rather than a period of 5 or ten years. Short term trends are kind of useless. At least the airport indicates whether we saw a record year or not. City building stats does this all the time, so do the real estate agencies so does CMHC with housing vacancies.
Also, I wonder when someone, such as Tourism PG and some of the service providers, is going to notice that the Chinese are also looking for the same things Europeans are coming here for, they want the rustic, northern experience. Someone coming back from being stationed at one of the Canadian consulates in China for several years was mentioning that is an untapped resource. Shortly after that Canada gained favourite nation status with Canada which made it easier for Chinese to travel here.
As far as Vancouver airport, having someone speak Polish at a tourist info kiosk is highly unlikely. They will likely speak English, Cantonese/Manadarin, Japanese, possibly Hindi.
Robert Dziekański was still in a secure area. Save movement of passengers through the airport is the airport authority’s responsibility, not those responsible for tourism kiosks. He should have been tagged as a person needing special assistance when he boarded the plane. At that time the airline and the pilot took over responsibility for all passengers. When they deplaned the Airport Authority took over. If he had been tagged as a special passenger, the airline would have made sure that he was received by someone from Airport Operations. The system failed him.
correction “Canada gained favourite nation status with China”
“As far as Vancouver airport, having someone speak Polish at a tourist info kiosk is highly unlikely. They will likely speak English, Cantonese/Manadarin, Japanese, possibly Hindi.”
Hey I have a novel idea, how about someone at the airport call this place to assist Mr. Dziekański… naw that would have been too difficult, besides cell phones and telephones are so hard to come by.
www. vancouver.mfa.gov.pl/en/
Help was literally just a phone call away, instead the RCMP was called, and probably by telephone… go figure. Can we improve Canada? No doubt about it, the question is; can we learn from our mistakes? I guess October 19th will tell us if we can!
October 13, 2007 was a Saturday. His plane arrived at about 3:15pm. Dziekański had language support when to complete customs formalities and immigration processing. His whereabouts between 4pm and 10:45pm are unknown, although he was still in the secure area.
At 10:45pm his Visa had apparently still not been processed. The immigration process was completed about 12:15am on Sunday morning October 14, 2007.
You tell me what ANY consular office in Vancouver could have done for ANY foreign language speakers. They are not set up for emergencies outside of regular office hours.
I suggest to you that before you make any sort of suggestion and think that you have solved the problem, that you do a bit of research first so that your solutions fits the particular case.
I would suggest to you gopg2015 that instead of making up excuses, try thinking about the tens of thousands of Polish speaking people living in Vancouver. The Vancouver airport should have a “list” of resources, including “emergency contacts” for almost every country’s citizens traveling to BC… but oh that’s right, BC is NOT that tourism friendly.
Can’t contact the Polish Embassy on the weekend, then how about the Polish Community Center?
http: //polishcommunitycentre.com/
or
www. internations.org/vancouver-expats/polish
or how about even a “F”ing dance group, to find anyone who can speak Polish?
www. polonezdance.com/
A language barrier added to the Vancouver airport incident, if Mr. Dziekański had interpretive help, the situation could have been diffused… stop making excuses and start providing answer gopg2015.
Amazing how comments will go completely off the rails.
Seeing a lot more hurt’in Albertan plates. Then there’s Washingtonians,
Arizonians, hey Californians can’t be far behind. Good, vacation here, spend yer money here, just leave yer guns at home……….
How is my last comment containing the phrase; “but oh that’s right, BC is NOT that tourism friendly” off topic from this “tourism” story Grizz?
In fact the whole Robert Dziekański incidents screams; welcome to Canada and BC, if you can’t speak our language and are unable to communicate with us, we could kill you. As for Prince George specifically being tourist friendly, how many RV sani-dump stations does the city operate? I recall the last mayor and council closing the one by the soccer fields and the one by the city recycling yard.
I told you the answer already Sophic. The chain of custody of a traveler who had some other problems than just his inability to speak the language was broken. It started with whoever dropped him off in Poland. They should have known that he would have trouble travelling unaccompanied. But they were just country folk from what I understand, not world travellers who would be more likely to understand the complexity of travelling by plane and travelling internationally as well as travelling for so long with little sleep.
My children used travel across Canada unaccompanied every summer. I know how it works. It works very well. In their case they could speak English but began travelling “by themselves” when they were 6 years old. Obviously they did not know their way around the airport. The service is available for anyone who asks. They do it for seniors, disabled, people who do not speak the language, etc.
There are no excuses for what happened to him. I am sure not going to attempt to solve it. In fact, neither you nor I know what is in place as a result of the incident. If you want to try to find out, that would be great. It would be the first time you would actually do some serious research on here. Maybe you could even write an article about your findings.
As grizzly2 wrote, this is a very tenuous connection between local tourism increasing, a major failure by ALL those responsible for the YVR incident and then on to the election.
If there is anything that the election should be dealing with is the whole mess with the immigration process in Canada. People are suffering and ill treated due to no fault of their own who should not be.
There are 13 sani dump stations in Prince George according to the linked site.
Why should the City operate any???
sanidumps.com/rvdumpscity.php?citynum=41&city=PrinceGeorge&cityradius=1
If the Canadian government would have a translator for every language that is spoken in the world sitting in every international airport,you would be barking about how much this is costing.
Keep the discussion going, you’re doing great. LMAO!!
By the phone!! you have got to be kidding me!!
So now, we will have all these translators on Call. Now how much is his going to cost the tax payer.
Do you really think before you say anything. You complain about tax dollars in one post and now you think the money should be there to ensure that every tourist in the world has some one to chat to.
By the way, this is week 2. Only 10 more to go.
Editors note: This comment thread is now closed for going way off topic.
Comments for this article are closed.