Travel Penticton holds second AGM

Travel Penticton will have some issues to face in the coming year, but cash on hand won’t be one of them.

Jessica Dolan, vice chair of the tourism marketing association, says a number of factors contributed to the organization having a healthy bank account to start 2018 off with.

That includes funds, about $500,000, from the previous Tourism Penticton and Penticton Hospitality Association, which combined forces last year to form the new organization.

“The great news about Travel Penticton is we actually have some money,” said Dolan. A major part of their funding, she explained, comes through the two per cent additional hotel room tax.

The largest portion of that, from the summer season, isn’t paid out until late in the year.

“We get to start 2018 off with money in the bank. There also wasn’t a lot of rent paid from the end of 2016 and all of 2017. That saved us a lot of money as well.”

That comes from giving up their lease to make way for the new Cascade Casino, and spending 2017 in a series of modular buildings in the corner of the South Okanagan Events Centre parking lot.

“It was only $10,000. It saved us a lot of money, it’s going to be quite a bit more next year,” said Dolan, noting that the visitor centre just moved into new premises. “We have a great agreement with the city and it is fair market value, but we got a steal of a deal for about a year.”

As of Dec. 31, 2017, Travel Penticton’s balance sheet showed the organization almost $1 million in the black.

Along with expenses, a large portion of those savings will be spent on marketing programs in 2018. Along with continuing grants to assist festivals and events with their external marketing, executive director Thom Tischik said a lot of the focus will be on enhancing their digital media strategy, especially working to increase engagement on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Just by virtue of what we do online, I think we are international when we are doing our Facebook posts, our social media, our Instagram. All those kind of things are out there for the world to see,” said Tischik. “But when we are doing our targeted marketing, it is more of a regional basis.

“I think it is going really well out there in the marketplace. The consistency and professionalism that we are putting across are starting to show. But it takes a while to get the message out there,” said Tischik.

Review websites like TripAdvisor and Yelp are growing in importance, according to Tischik.

“I believe one of the most powerful ways to get your word out there now is consumer advocacy. They are the ones who are the instant judges of your product, of your location and your service,” Tischik said.

In the past, he explained, reviews came from travel writers, magazines and similar sources. Now, individuals are passing on their reviews as they are being served their meal.

“They are typing it up right now and sharing it with the world. That’s scary,” he said. “We will trust people, we have no idea who they are, whether they are truthful or not. But we will look at those and we will trust those probably more than we will trust our buddy,” said Tischik.

Someone Tischik is hoping to build some trust with is youth. Travel Penticton has started a program to get local youth involved as social media influencers. Marketing is aimed at a number of demographics from seniors to young families, but Travel Penticton is also hoping to engage youth and speak directly to them.

A pilot project has been started with Grade 8 students at KVR Middle School to help them develop the skills need to work with local stakeholders and they’ll their story from a youth perspective.

In turn, he said, the youth develop skills in writing, photography and video production that will be useful to them.

The goal is to speak to the youth out there that also influence the family vacation choices and show them what they can do in Penticton.

“We’re trying to feature a stakeholder, get the kids to write about it and we feature them on our website and our feeds,” said Tischik. “We want to get this to grow so that on our website and on our feeds, we actually get regular posts from these youth influencers.”