More from Kamloops visit West Kelowna
Economic development officer says city can attract visitors from nearby
West Kelowna may never draw many New Yorkers. But Kamloopsians? Meow.
Visitors from Kamloops increased after a modest spending increase of West Kelowna promotional dollars in that city, council heard Tuesday.
Economic development officer John Perrott said Tourism Kelowna does the “heavy lifting” of promoting the Central Okanagan across a national and international audience. But he suggested West Kelowna is well positioned to draw visitors from smaller, more proximate locations.
A recent national pickleball tournament drew many visitors to West Kelowna, Mayor Doug Findlater said, predicting they’d spread word of the city’s charms in the international pickleball community.
“Now we’re there, we’re a part of it, we’re a known entity,” Findlater said.
Coun. Rosalind Neis wanted specific information on the number of businesses, and their total employees, that the economic development office had attracted to West Kelowna. Planning manager Nancy Henderson responded most local EDC efforts are directed toward retaining and expanding local businesses rather than trying to draw new ones to West Kelowna.
Targeting businesses in other communities for relocation to West Kelowna, Henderson said, “tends to be very expensive and not as successful as working with what’s already in your community.”
Coun. Bryden Winsby said every community hopes to attract “clean, light, employment-generating industries” and suggested it was a bit unreasonable to expect West Kelowna to be more successful in this regard than other communities.
“It sounds good in theory, but in practice I think it’s more difficult than that, and certainly very costly,” Winsby said.
Coun. Rick de Jong also said Neis’s request, echoed by Coun. Rusty Ensign, was “unfair.” De Jong said Perrott had done “an outstanding job” as economic development officer.
Coun. Duane Ophus, who is not running for re-election, said the next council should budget more money for economic development if it wants to focus on trying to lure businesses from other communities.