The Canadian Press
KAMLOOPS, B.C.–British Columbia’s tourism industry is taking a hit, with businesses reporting rising cancellations and decreased traffic over fears of wildfires.
Maya Lange with Destinations BC, the province’s tourism planning and marketing corporation, said yesterday that preliminary results from a survey of businesses in the Kootenay-Rockies region found 32 percent are anticipating losses due to perceptions of the fires.
“We are very concerned,” Lange said.
“Just looking at the volume of visitation and the volume of trips that are taken by British Columbian and Albertan residents alone . . . especially in the months of July and August, we think there will be a significant impact.”
She said one business in the region alone reported it has lost $100,000 due to cancellations in July.
The Thompson-Okanagan region has been hardest hit by wildfires, with Lange saying 47 percent of businesses in the area are reporting some sort of interruption this summer, such as cancellations or road closures.
Barkerville Historic Town and Park, a provincially-operated attraction, also has reported a 54 percent decline in visits comparing July 7 to Aug. 21 this year to last year, which caused a 50 percent drop in net revenue.
“If Barkerville is down, the surrounding privately-owned businesses that provide accommodations, hospitality, food, and other activities will also be down and those impacts will be much harder on those private entities,” Lange said.
Businesses are encouraged to contact their customers and reassure them it still is safe to travel in an effort to avoid cancellations.
Lange said businesses also are being told to share photos of their sites on social media so people can see the region is safe and accessible.
She added Destinations BC has a marketing campaign underway to better inform travellers that most of the province remains safe to explore, but it’s expected that losses to the industry will be significant once the total numbers for the season are calculated.
The BC Wildfire Service said there have been 1,154 fires sparked since April 1, burning more than 10,600 square kilometres of land, and there is no sign of fire activity slowing down soon.
Although a 1,750-sq.-km fire in the Thompson-Nicola region is now 50 percent contained, fire information officer Ryan Turcot said unstable weather conditions bringing gusty winds has caused the blaze to spread.
An evacuation order for an area south of Highway 24, including properties around Watch Lake, Horse Lake, and Little Green Lake, was expanded as a result of the blaze.
A wildfire burning south of the border in Washington state also has moved into B.C. toward the community of Newgate, which is about 90 km southeast of Cranbrook.
Turcot said there is no rain in the forecast for the central and southern Interior over the next week to bring relief from hot and dry conditions expected this weekend, which poses a greater fire risk.
