Visitors centres in Ladysmith and Chemainus report that the Cowichan Valley is benefiting from Vancouver Island’s popularity as a tourist and retirement destination.
Jeanne Ross, who is winding up her five years as executive director with the Chemainus Chamber of Commerce, said visits to the tourist information Centre are way up.
“In my opinion we’re well up,” she said, noting that there’s a noticeable increase in the volume of tour bus traffic.
Amy Fielden, coordinator, corroborated Ross’s observation. The number of people dropping-in at the Visitors Information Centre is up 65 per cent over the same period last year.
Especially noticeable, she said, is an increase in the number of people coming here from Canada. “We’ve had people here from Ontario and Newfoundland, it’s awesome,” she said.
Fielden also pointed to an increase in visitor RV traffic over the winter months. “We’ve had a really good winter, with people not going south, they’re heading west.”
Up the road in Ladysmith, the Visitors Information Bureau is holding its own, said Tourism Counsellor Jacquie Chellew.
But ‘holding their own’ means doing well, she pointed out, since the Duncan Visitors Information Centre has opened up and is drawing a lot of traffic that would previously have stopped in at Ladysmith.
Most of the traffic coming through the Ladysmith Visitors Information Centre is from B.C.,but there has been an increase in visitors from the US, Europe, Asia and across Canada (with the exception of Alberta).
Chellew noted that there’s been an increase in overnight stays, and stays of 14 days or longer. “Accommodation overnight stays are up and people are staying here for longer,” she said.
That trend can partly be attributed to Air B&B bookings, which have become a bigger part of the mix.
High on people’s request lists is information on dining, parks & recreation, arts & heritage, and relocation. “Quite often they are looking for a local’s perspective on where to dine, hike, and what to see,” she said.
Another noticeable increase is to queries in the ‘investment-move’ category, an indication that people are visiting to check out Ladysmith as a place to relocate, perhaps as part of their retirement planning.
In April through June of 2016 there were 80 requests for investment-move information, compared to 58 queries in the same period last year.
