Over the last four or five years, we’ve often referred to tourism marketing in Penticton as being on a roller coaster.
Since 2011, when city council decided not to renew the tourism contract with the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce, tourism marketing has dipped, climbed, plunged and, generally, had lots of ups and downs as various personalities and organizations — sometimes in competition with each other — have stepped on and off the ride.
The roller coaster analogy works for another reason. Despite traveling a lot of distance, like a roller coaster, when you get off the ride you haven’t really gone very far.
To be sure, it’s not that everything is going wrong. The two per cent additional hotel room tax — collected to fund destination marketing — rose from about $480,000 in 2014 to just over $530,000 in 2015. In 2011, the total collected was about $428,000. That’s a good indicator there are still lots of people coming to visit our region. But the question has to be asked whether there would have been even more with focused campaigns and a single voice over the last few years. That’s why we have to applaud the ongoing work between Tourism Penticton and the Penticton Hospitality Association to create a single organization — with control of all the tourism funding — to handle the city’s destination marketing message.
Even more, we have to applaud the attitude expressed by Diana Stirling, chair of Tourism Penticton, following a tourism stakeholder meeting this week, where concepts for both the structure of the new organization and possible marketing messages were offered for feedback. Stirling said they were pleased to hear both positive and negative feedback. It’s OK not to like what was presented, she said, but it’s not OK to stop there.
“This is about moving forward. We are done with hearing that’s awful, end of conversation,” said Stirling. “If you don’t like it, come forward with a solution to assist us.”
Just the attitude needed to bring together the myriad tourism voices in this community.